It’s been a month since we launched the Lightning Wallet in the Relai app, and we’re excited to share the data, our learning and what we’ve been up to with you. Spoiler ahead: It’s been a great launch with many things learned, and we look forward to releasing new features soon!
In this blog post, you will learn why we decided to integrate the Lightning Wallet, who our partners are, why we decided to launch on Product Hunt, and what you can expect in the coming months.
The Stats of Our Lightning Launch
We enabled the Lightning Network for all our users in the first week of March and saw immediate interest. Within the first seven days, we saw an increase in users swapping Bitcoin to the Lightning Network, making payments, and giving us valuable feedback.
We’ve partnered with Blockstream and Breez, pioneers and industry leaders in the Lightning space, to build the most robust infrastructure. Both provide a non-custodial “Lightning-as-a-Service” solution by integrating Blockstream’s Greenlight cloud nodes with the Breez SDK’s Lightning Service Providers (LSPs) and on-chain interoperability services.
After a month of usage, we’re thrilled to report the following numbers for our Lightning usage:
- Open Channels: 2908
- Average Channel Size: 256,310 Satoshis
- Connected Nodes: 74,019
- Total Amount of Bitcoin: 7.45 BTC
Our CTO, Adem Bilican, was eager to get started and determine the best solution to offer non-custodial Lightning to over 100,000 users. The integration of the Greenlight node and Breez SDK has been incredibly successful, and we were able to set everything up in minutes. The collaboration between both teams is delightful, and we look forward to working even more closely together.
Our Learnings and What We’ll Improve in the Following Months
Ever since Relai launched in 2020, we’ve been hard at work offering the most user-friendly Bitcoin app while maintaining self-custody for our users. Lightning has always been at the top of our list, and we’re excited to offer it to our users.
This is why we wanted to launch Lightning with a bang and announced the feature on Product Hunt, one of the most visited websites on the Internet. Our launch was the most successful Bitcoin-only launch in history!
We won the Product of the Day, Week, and Month awards in the Web3 and Fintech categories. We’re currently on the shortlist for a final vote at the end of this year to become the Product of the Year in both categories.
However, like with every new update to a product, we also faced challenges. Firstly, Lightning is the ultimate scaling solution for Bitcoin, but it is technically complex. Many moving parts are involved, and we’re grateful to have Blockstream and Breez onboard.
One of the challenges we had in the beginning was the swap from on-chain to Lightning. Luckily, we solved that bug quickly, mainly due to the great feedback we got from users and the continuous support our Relaiers give us daily. The Breez team was also a fantastic resource for us to solve this problem.
Secondly, we were surprised by the sheer number of users who got on board with Lightning and started using the feature immediately. This volume pushed our users nodes to the max, but thanks to it, we’re now able to calculate exactly how big the liquidity must be and what our users need. The Blockstream team was our closest confidant in this situation, and their Greenlight solution could handle anything that was thrown at it.
These two fixes were at the top of our to-do list, and now that they’re out of the window, we’re focusing on enabling LNURL and Lightning Addresses in the coming months. Both solutions are critical aspects of the Lightning ecosystem and will allow more use cases for the Relai Lightning Wallet.
Our Lightning launch has been off to a fantastic start, and we’re very much looking forward to the next couple of weeks and months with the new and exciting features in the pipeline. Next to Lightning, one of our main focuses is expanding into Europe and offering Bitcoin to even more people. Lightning’s real-time settlement nature will be an added benefit for us and our users going forward!
But we wouldn’t be here without you, Relaier! All of this success wouldn’t have been possible without your continued support, and we know our community is cheering us on every step of the way. If you want us to grow even faster, here are some ways how you can help us out:
- Refer Relai to your friends and family to earn Bitcoin.
- Follow us on X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, Instagram, and Nostr: npub1sqzr42dj8vx32yd5jcvvl3ytux45kl0etgf6y2ymjvmd7lqmuwmqk9vk7v.
- Subscribe to our weekly Bitcoin newsletter.
- Subscribe to our YouTube channel, where you can find our Bitcoin podcast.
Download the Relai app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store today to buy Bitcoin.
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