Next Release of Electrum Bitcoin Wallet Set To Support Lightning Network

Electrum, a popular Bitcoin wallet, is set to support the famous Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN) soon, the company recently revealed via social media. After the next release of the wallet, the integration with the LN will be made. LN-based payments will be supported and the master branch of the wallet will be merged with Electrum’s lightning node.

Another important update is that the wallet is set to employ a new in-house Python-based system, which will be more efficient.

The Electrum wallet has been in the market since 2011 and, during this time, it has maintained its position as one of the main wallets, mostly because it is easy to use and fairly secure, as well as having a huge user base and period updates.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, on the other hand, was launched last year. Initially, the software had a somewhat rocky start, as many transactions failed and the money was lost, but months of work have patched it up and now the solution is getting pretty popular.

This technology is often seen as a solution to the several scalability problems that the network has. As its transactions happen off-chain, the second layer protocol can enable quick transactions even the Bitcoin network is completely clogged due to a high number of transactions. This is especially important for merchants, as they need transactions to be quick.

Even now, however, the LN still is experimental. Last month, for example, developer Rusty Russel discovered a vulnerability that could lead people to lose their funds using it, so major adoption of the technology is still at least some time away.