After years of conceptualization and development, the first Lightning implementations are now in beta. As a result, more nodes are appearing online every day, a growing number of users are opening channels with one another, and some merchants even started to accept Lightning payments.
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But of course, these are still the very early days of the[3] Lightning[4] Network[5]. While the main implementations are usable and some wallets and other applications are available, Bitcoin’s overlay payment network is projected to improve over the next few years in areas ranging from network architecture to security and usability, and more.
These are some of the more important Lightning projects currently in development.
Dual-Funded Channels
The Lightning Network consists of a series of payment channels. Each payment channel exists between two users, allowing funds to be sent back and forth between them.
However, in this early stage of development, payment channels can only be funded by one of the two parties. The funding party must first make a transaction to his counterparty; only then can that counterparty return a payment within the same payment channel.
The Lightning Network white paper[6], however, proposed dual-funded channels, for which a specification proposal[7] has now also been made by ACINQ[8], the company behind eclair[9]. As the name suggests, dual-funded channels will let both users partly fund a payment channel by each depositing some bitcoin. This should bring more flexibility to the Lightning user experience, as users can immediately send as well as receive payment after having opened a channel.
Submarine Swaps
In order to make a Lightning payment, users must deposit funds in a Lightning channel. Once in a channel, these funds cannot
