Crypto

Michael Saylor snubs claims he doesn’t use Bitcoin Lightning Network

6 months ago
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Microstrategy CEO Michael Saylor doesn’t like being yelled at. He responded to a survey shared by Eric Wall, a crypto researcher, who suggested that he had not used the Bitcoin (BTC) Layer 2 Lightning network more than three times with a Twitter poll of his own.

Saylor answered the survey with a resounding yes and started a meme competition with a gift of 1,000,000 sats (0.01 Bitcoin, $200) to the meme he liked the most. By giving away Sats to award winners, Saylor will literally use the Lightning Network three times.

Saylor first he tweeted on the Lightning Network in May 2021, and has since become a proponent of the Bitcoin-based Layer 2 payment solution, as well as live, or Lightning Finance. Wall, a former chief investment officer at Arcane Research, has he called Saylor several times, and his initial optimism about the Lightning Network in 2018 has dissolved into criticism.

Other prominent Bifluencers, including Udi Wertheimer and Lilli, Head of Business Development at Foundation Devices, regularly touch the LN. Lilli recently called the network a “failure” and Udi said“No one uses it.”

The survey, as well as Wall’s recent comments, highlight a larger problem. Is the Lightning Network a marginal solution to Bitcoin’s scalability problem that even the biggest names in the Bitcoin space struggle to use? Or, is the Lightning Network, after eight years of development, a failure?

Related: Busking in Bitcoin: How Lightning Network Beats Ethereum for Tipping

Wall shared a series of videos highlighting the difficulties of transferring funds via LN from old Bitcoin wallets to a new phone. He too predicted that the capacity of Bitcoin on the LN will not exceed 6,000 Bitcoin before 2023. The capacity of the Bitcoin network increased to 4,000 BTC in June and 5,000 BTC in October. With two months to go before the end of the year, Wall tweeted that it’s “going to be a nail biter.”

Maybe big companies entering the space will reinforce LN usage and improve sentiment. Saylor is doubling down on its Bitcoin strategy again as Microstrategy is hiring Lightning developers. In addition, NYDIG, a leading Bitcoin company, announced in its third quarter report that “Now is the time for Lightning”, expressing its intention to contribute to the LN.

For smaller, first-to-Bitcoin companies, deals are struck and announcements made weekly. Strike recently led a successful $80 million funding round, while Galoy, the team behind El Salvador’s Bitcoin Beach wallet, has implemented dollars on the LN, an aid to markets emerging In Gibraltar, a highly sophisticated financial market, Lightning Network adoption is booming.

Finally, at a recent panel discussion moderated by Cointelegraph in France, prominent Lightning developers such as “Dr. Bitcoin himself, Christian Decker, as well as data scientist Rene Pickhard, reflected on whether the failure of LN transaction is acceptable in 2022.

The overwhelming sentiment from the panel that day is that the LN is still a work in progress. It’s not a resounding success either, as it’s still early days. For Nicolas Burtey, CEO of Galoy, the group behind Adopting Bitcoin, a Lightning Summit in El Salvador, “The adoption of Bitcoin in El Salvador was the turning point for Lightning.” El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law turned one just a month ago.

Meanwhile, there are now hundreds of memes in response to Saylor’s tweet.

Cointelegraph reached out to Eric Wall, who declined to comment. Cointelegraph will update the article if Saylor, Wertheimer or Lilli share comments.