The Lightning Network is a Layer-2 payments protocol designed to operate on the Layer-1 Bitcoin blockchain. It supports smart contracts and offers faster transactions on its network, making it a viable solution for Bitcoin's scalability challenges.
The Lightning Network is a decentralized network that allows instant Bitcoin transactions and transfers with meager block-confirmation time. Its technology can process billions of Bitcoin transactions per second across its network against Bitcoin's limited throughput of 3-7 TPS.
In addition, the Bitcoin Lightning Network also brings down transaction costs, making it an ideal platform to enable speedy micropayments in the leading cryptocurrency in the market. Bitcoin's Lightning Network is also empowered with support for cross-chain atomic swaps off-chain, letting users swap their other crypto assets for Bitcoin in a trustless and highly efficient manner.