The Lightning Network (LN) is considered to be a great tool to bring changes to the cryptocurrency sphere. It represents itself a second-layer scaling technology intended to run on top of Bitcoin and other crypto networks.
This technology helps to overcome a problem of scalability, aiming to increase the number of transactions the network can support. It provides an opportunity to conduct instant payments at very low fees but at the same time it still keeps the trustlessness and censorship-resistance of the network.
If we take Bitcoin network as an example, we will see that thanks to the LN, each participant of the network is able to deposit on-chain funds to off-chain LN payment channels with the help of Bitcoin’s built-in scripting language. It will take just a few seconds to send these funds to another LN user without any on-chain verification till the closure of the payment channel.
Nowadays a great number of startups work on the Lightning Network. But Acinq is obviously one of the leaders in this sphere. As it has been recently announced, Acinq closed its funding round with $1.7 million. The funding round was led by Serena capital.
Some other prominent names also took part in this funding. Talend co-founder Bertrand Diard, Sebastien Lucas, Alistair Milne and Snapcar founder Yves Weisselberger were among them. After such a success of Acinq, it has become clear that now Lightning Labs is not the only project working with the technology that managed to attract funds for its development.
Acinq was founded just a few years ago and it managed to enter the industry as one of the major players responsible for the progress in the design and creation of lightning.
The startup created a software program called Éclair that is one of three lightning implementations together with those offered by Lightning Labs and Blockstream. Moreover, Acinq launched Éclair Wallet that is considered to be the most popular lightning wallet at the current moment.
Though the startup has already achieved rather high results, its team comprises just three people. Speaking about the project’s activities, its co-founder and CEO Pierre-Marie Padiou said:
“Everything that we did was done with very little. With this raise, we’re very excited to do a lot more with more resources. We’ll be able to make even more cool services for lightning. This is not only good for us but for lightning in general and for pushing adoption forward.”
Now Acinq is planning to continue developing on its network to ensure the highest level of its safety and user-friendliness. Moreover, the startup has some plans to welcome at least three more talented developers on board. According to Padiou, they are also going to cooperate with other developers to improve Lightning standards.
In general, it’s worth mentioning that the Lightning Network really can bring significant changes to our lives. Just recently CoinSpeaker has reported that thanks to a new crypto-capable vending machine and the LN it is possible to purchase Coca Cola with BTC.
