O XRP, gerenciado pela Fundação XRPL, é uma das muitas criptomoedas que afirma ter maior rendimento de transações do que o Bitcoin. Permitir transações mais baratas e rápidas tem sido um importante argumento de venda para milhares de criptomoedas todos os anos. Esta propaganda é tão eficaz que alguns até consideram o Bitcoin uma tecnologia “obsoleta”.
Na verdade, o oposto é verdadeiro. Para entender isso, precisamos discutir o famoso trilema do blockchain e, posteriormente, da Lightning Network.
Este trilema refere-se à impossibilidade de maximizar três aspectos principais da tecnologia blockchain – segurança, descentralização e rendimento de transações – ao mesmo tempo. Em suma, a otimização de um aspecto muitas vezes ocorre às custas de outros.
Bitcoin prioritizes decentralization, with a relatively low throughput of 7 transactions per second. In contrast, XRP has a throughput of 1500 transactions per second.
The degree of decentralization can be measured by the number of nodes, which is directly proportional to the size of the blockchain (currently 630GB), and as the blockchain grows, the cost of setting up a node (hard drive, memory, bandwidth, etc.) is also increasing.
Ensuring the network remains decentralized requires small block sizes, thus limiting the number of transactions they can contain. The 1MB limit per block is a cornerstone of this design.
This limit was fiercely defended during the 'block size war.' Back then (in 2017), some wanted to sacrifice decentralization to increase transaction throughput, but they were unsuccessful. This resistance led to the fork of Bitcoin Cash (BCH).
The obvious failure of Bitcoin Cash indicates that the main appeal of Bitcoin lies in being a truly decentralized and secure store of value, rather than a means of payment. However, the creation of the Lightning Network allows us to have both.
Paying for coffee with Bitcoin The Lightning Network significantly increases Bitcoin's transaction throughput while maintaining its security. It connects to the Bitcoin network through so-called Hash Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs), a secondary network.
Transactions here are faster, cheaper, and more private. The Lightning Network is well-suited for micropayments, which can be as small as one satoshi (i.e., 0.00000001 BTC or 0.001 euros). For instance, it can be used to give tiny online tips or pay for a few seconds of internet service (like streaming) without a subscription.
Once BTC is locked in a channel through on-chain transactions, payments can be made in real-time and almost for free. Theoretically, the Lightning Network can handle millions of transactions per second. Fees are far lower than on-chain transactions and may spike during network congestion. Fees are calculated in millisatoshis, which is one-thousandth of a satoshi.
But isn’t a satoshi the smallest unit? Indeed, but the Lightning Network uses smaller units. When a channel is closed through a second on-chain transaction, the amount is rounded down to the next lower satoshi.
Like the Bitcoin network, the Lightning Network routes payments through a decentralized network of nodes. Routing is dynamic, ensuring that the cheapest path is chosen to deliver payments to various corners of the internet.
A slowly but steadily growing network Since its launch in 2018, the Lightning Network has experienced exponential growth, although it seems to have slowed down in the past two years. By the end of 2024, the network hosted approximately 15,000 nodes with around 50,000 active channels and a total capacity of 5000 BTC, equivalent to about 500 million dollars.
The Lightning Network is an open-source project with multiple interoperable implementations, such as LND, Core Lightning, or Eclair. They coordinate through a set of standards described in BOLT (the Lightning Technology Base), which shares the same philosophy as the Bitcoin network.
The most popular Lightning wallets include Phoenix and Breez from France. Several exchanges, such as Bitfinex, OKX, Binance, or Kraken, have integrated the Lightning Network, allowing customers to access BTC through Lightning channels and avoid high fees during network congestion.
Merchant adoption of the Lightning Network is continuing to grow. For example, Bitrefill, a major Bitcoin gift card retailer, and OpenNode, a payment processor that enables over 500,000 merchants (such as Shopify) to accept Lightning payments.
Lastly, Lightning transactions are very private. They reach their destination through numerous channels, making them inherently private. This is a significant distinction from the Bitcoin network, where all transactions are public.
Lightning payments only reveal the sender and receiver to the directly involved parties. Therefore, rather than doing Coinjoin, it's better to make multiple transactions on the Lightning Network to erase traces.
In other words, the Lightning Network makes it unnecessary for cryptocurrencies that rely on high transaction throughput or focus on privacy, like Monero (XMR), to distinguish themselves. Notably, Finnish police have been able to trace Monero transactions. In short, the Lightning Network has eliminated the reasons for thousands of cryptocurrencies that exist solely to enrich their creators. For instance, the creators of XRP allocated all XRP to themselves and gradually sold it to speculative investors.
