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The Lightning Network

A fast lane on top of Bitcoin for instant, tiny payments

Buying a £2 snack with the main Bitcoin chain is slow and clunky. Lightning is a fast lane built on top of Bitcoin that sends tiny amounts in a blink.

Why Bitcoin needs a fast lane

The main Bitcoin chain checks every payment carefully across thousands of computers. That safety has a cost: the base layer handles only about 8–10 payments a second for the whole world, and a payment takes around 10 minutes to confirm. That is fine for big, important payments — but it was never going to be everyone's coffee card. Lightning fixes that without changing Bitcoin's careful base layer.

~8–10 / sec

Base-layer payments for the whole world (observed, Oct 2026)

instant

No waiting for a new block

< 1p

Estimated fee to send £2 over Lightning (typical fees, Oct 2026)

How it works: payment channels

Lightning is a network of payment channels. Think of it as opening a tab you can settle later.

Open a channel

Two people lock a little Bitcoin into a shared address. This one step touches the main blockchain.

Pay back and forth, instantly

Now they can send tiny amounts to each other as many times as they like — instant, and almost free. None of these payments need the blockchain.

Hop through the network

You do not need a channel with everyone. A payment can hop through other people’s channels to reach anyone connected to the network.

Close the channel

When they are done, they settle up and the final balances are written back to the blockchain. Only opening and closing ever touch the main chain.

Lightning lets Bitcoin buy small things fast — like a snack — while the main chain keeps the big, important record safe.

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