The popular Electrum bitcoin wallet is reportedly going to soon add support for the flagship cryptocurrency’s layer-two scaling solution, the lightning network, as part of a “major release.”
According to Russian cryptocurrency news outlet Forklog, Electrum founder Thomas Voegtlin revealed during an ongoing conference in Odesa, Ukraine, that the popular cryptocurrency wallet is going to add lightning network support.
This shortly after Electrum, one of the oldest bitcoin wallets out there, announced the release of its 3.3.7 version, which included “various bugfixes and improvements.”
Electrum 3.3.7 was just released, with various bugfixes and improvements. Read the release notes and download it from https://t.co/Y2DXoUyOgk
— Electrum (@ElectrumWallet) July 3, 2019
The move will make Electrum one of the most popular bitcoin wallets adding support the BTC’s lightning network, a technology that allows for microtransactions off-chain and helps the cryptocurrency scale. The lightning network’s growing adoption has, according to some analysts, contributed to bitcoin’s recovery this year.
The layer-two scaling solution gained a lot of attention earlier this year after a trust-based game in which users passed a ‘torch’ through the lightning network saw fidelity Digital Assets, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and other prominent industry personalities participate. It ended in a charitable donation to Bitcoin Venezuela.
According to 1ML data, bitcoin’s lightning network currently has 8,956 nodes and a total capacity of 937.87 BTC, worth over $10.5 million. In March of this year, its capacity surpassed the $3 million mark. The growth isn’t just related to adoption, as bitcoin’s rally so far this year contributed to its USD capacity increase.
Electrum itself is a well-known bitcoin wallet. Earlier this year popular video-sharing platform YouTube promoted an illegitimate version of the wallet, as scammers were looking to scam users out of their BTC.
