The Lightning Network processed $1.17 billion across 5.22 million transactions in November 2025, according to River’s 2026 Bitcoin adoption report, falling below its August 2023 peak of 6.6 million transactions. Alex Bosworth, head of liquidity at Lightning, acknowledged the network remains “extremely slow compared to tap to pay,” while Jesse Shrader of Amboss highlighted that $100 payments can achieve 99.66% reliability but larger payments frequently fail during routing. Technical complexity around node management continues to alienate average users, driving adoption toward easier custodial services. The real debate centers on whether Lightning supporters conflate evidence of what the network can do with what people are actually doing with it in practice.
Source: Read the original article
