CEO of ‘Shitcoin’ Website Controls 49% of BTC’s Lightning Network Nodes

Andreas Brekken, the CEO of Shitcoin.com occupies majority of the Bitcoin [BTC] Lightning Network. Shitcoin’s node holds 35 BTC leading it to occupy more than 48% of the total capacity of Lightning Network.

Prior to Brekken’s node going live, the entire Lightning Network had a capacity of only around $225,000, with Andreas Brekken now comprising 49 percent of total network capacity at $427,000. He currently controls a Lightning Network node with a capacity of 35.4 BTC ($221,000).

The Bitcoin Lightning Network is a second layer payment protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. It is a solution for the Bitcoin scalability issues. It allows 2 nodes to make an unlimited amount of transactions of the Bitcoin blockchain. The transactions are recorded on the blockchain only when the node channel is closed. The key features of the Lightning Network include instant payments, scalability, low cost and cross-chain atomic swaps.

The current statistics of the Lightning Network are:

• Number of Nodes: 2755
• Number of Channels: 9159
• Network Capacity: 72.29 BTC
• Nodes with active channels: 2024

Andreas has been increasingly showing interest in the Bitcoin Lightning Network. When questioned on his Lightning Network node on Twitter, he responded by saying that he was surprised no one noticed the nodes’ color choice.

Since the technology’s tentative debut at the start of the year, a wide variety of tools have accompanied thousands of nodes going live. Restrictions still remain, however, with Lightning’s experimental status providing incomplete security and complicated user experience.