A brief history of the Lightning Network

The Bitcoin community has long been baffled by the scalability issue. The speed of transactions fell, and the network fees grew. In 2015 Thaddeus Dria and Joseph Poon proposed a solution called the Lightning Network. The idea was to carry out some of the transactions outside the network, thereby reducing the load on the BTC blockchain. In 2018, the Lightning Network was launched in Bitcoin.

The Lightning Network is a system that helps users move funds among themselves without having to use a blockchain to verify a transaction. Instead, there is a quick check of funds from the sender and a request from the recipient who agrees to the transaction.

Problems that may arise when sending Lightning Network

1. If an error occurs when you try to send the Lightning Network, then most likely it happened due to the lack of channels. The Lightning Network requires links between nodes. If your wallet allows you to open channels yourself, then you can open a channel with FixedFloat.
   FixedFloat Node:
   037f990e61acee8a7697966afd29dd88f3b1f8a7b14d625c4f8742bd952003a590@lnd.fixedfloat.com:9735
   
   For more information on how to do this, see our article "How to start using the Lightning Network?".
2. If you see a "Payment in transit" message when sending the Lightning Network, it means the Lightning Network has been sent, but there is a problem with intermediate nodes. You need to wait for the final invoice payment or refund.

Lightning Network Speed and Fees

Since transactions on the Lightning Network do not end up on the blockchain, they are almost instantaneous. But if one of the intermediate nodes is off the network, the transaction may be delayed.

The fee depends on the intermediate channels through which the payment passes. Usually it is almost zero. But it so happens that some channels charge a high fee for passing the payment. It can reach up to 1% of the amount.

A brief history of Cardano

At the end of 2014, former Ethereum developer Charles Hoskins put together a team to create a Cardano platform that, in his opinion, had to meet all his requirements. With the help of the platform, Charles Hoskins wanted to introduce cryptocurrency into the real economy, make microtransactions convenient and create convenient conditions for launching reliable and secure decentralized applications.

Cardano address formats

There are 2 types of Cardano addresses:

1. Byron is the first version of an address that starts with "A" or "D".
   Example: Ae2tdPwUPEZGJXifUWS7Dps4DU836BUKxQi11RdREsc6AkW4PZYUrVANfiJ
   Example:
   DdzFFzCqrhsejNpK4W1ez1p8vYsn24oMqHTQpFdn6VUEf4WD9MQEmsbvUioCt18ei17eAWAphZGMHJRZVLLR2qKQCBckvvTyyKWLQ3sS
2. Shelley is a new type of address based on the bech32 format. The address starts with "addr1". A feature of these addresses is their compactness. If earlier all information was stored in the blockchain, now only the most necessary remains there. Also, the new address model allows for up to 123 address versions.
   Example:
   addr1qyqlrkfrauruw27d6r9hrvu0m4lr93x4svrazsjex78yffynycyk0wy2fn6tjxexpdg9yceput30p4t5cr2kcfwv2dzs99w7ye

Speed in the Cardano blockchain

The exchange requires 15 confirmations. Blocks in the ADA blockchain appear approximately every 20 seconds. The average time for confirmation of an exchange is 5 minutes.