Lightning Labs releases Lightning Loop Alpha

• The biggest problem with the lightning network is that it requires “inbound capacity.”
• Lightning Loop will help withdraw the inbound capacity so that users can keep using the same payment channel to receive bitcoin

Lightning Lab has released Lightning Loop Alpha which will improve the usability of the lightning network. Lightning Network is a layer-2 solution system which will help increase the scalability of Bitcoin via payment channels aka lightning channels. As Lighting Labs developers Alex Bosworth and Bryan Wu state in a blog post:

“Lighting channels are like tubes of money “¦ Money moves around in the tube, but the total amount of funds remains constant. So, unlike other payment systems, Lightning requires ‘inbound capacity’ in order to receive funds.”

Enabling Lightning Loop will help withdraw the inbound capacity so that users can keep using the same payment channel to receive bitcoin. Bosworth and Wu explain:

“The lightning loop will specifically allow funds to be moved outside of the payment channel and into a bitcoin wallet, cold storage, or fiat currency via an exchange. This emptying of the channel allows users to receive more payments, while still continuing transactions and looping out again. As a result, new recipients on the network no longer need to rely on others to open channels with them, before they’re able to start receiving payments.”

Marco Pesani, Head Of Product Development at Conio Inc, was impressed with the alpha release. He tweeted:

“Loop from [Lightning Labs] solves one of the biggest lightning network pain points: channels liquidity management “¦ I’ve never seen so many advancement and such focus on the final objective. Massive.”