Reaching the first 1% is the hardest
Because of exponential properties of networked systems, reaching that first one percent is always the hardest, because at the beginning the network effects virtually do not push growth. After the first one percent reaching 10% and higher is less difficult than getting to 1% because the network effect creates incentives for people and organisations to join.
The Lightning Network has a goal of reaching 1 million nodes, which is just an arbitrary large number, but it represents a psychologically significant tipping point when a system won't be dismissed anymore even by those who don't understand the technology well enough. 1 million nodes would mean there is a large, active and striving economy behind the network. 1M is not a limit of the network, as long as we can keep improving the routing algorithms.
According to https://1ml.com/ there are at 7+K LN nodes now. It's likely that we already closer to 1% of 1M already, as explorers can only see public nodes, and there is an unknown quantity of non-public nodes out there as well.
So far most nodes are operated by forward thinking technophiles. Within two months, we can expect to see a sudden (in absolute terms) growth of LN because the network effects will start to exert a force on economic players as well, such as exchanges, payment processors, stores, games, online-services, freelancers, etc. We will also start to see significant atomic swapping happening between the Bitcoin LN, Litecoin LN and Ethereum Raiden networks, which are slowly growing too.
Exciting times! ⚡️
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from Bitcoin - The Currency of the Internet https://ift.tt/2tRjAUu
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