Bitcoin wallet Electrum now supports the Lightning Network, as well as the Watchtowers protocol and Submarine Swaps.
With the new Electrum update to the version 4.0.2, wallet is network compatible Lightning Network (LN), so from now on it will be able to accept payments made from this network.
The announcement was made by the Electrum development team, who expressed via Twitter that in order to make this integration possible, it was necessary to implement an own node in the LN network that was merged with the wallet code.
It is worth remembering that Electrum has been developing tests for the integration of the Lightning Network and bug fixes since 2018, when its founder, Thomas Voegtlin announced during the conference Bitcoin Wednesday that the wallet would integrate payments into this network. Now, the integration of the wallet into the LN network is no longer a test project but a reality that will improve the scalability of Bitcoin by making payments much faster and cheaper within the network.
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What is Electrum?
La light wallet Electrum It is a wallet of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which implements simplified payments (SPV) to verify transactions made and received without having to download the entire blockchain. It is a desktop wallet that has separate clients for several of the major cryptocurrencies on the market, such as Bitcoin, Dash y Litecoin.
To verify transactions made or received through this wallet, the Electrum SPV client downloads the block headers of each blockchain from each official website, requesting a proof of inclusion that uses the merkle tree.
The Electrum wallet is also a wallet of the type deterministic (HD) which allows you to recover your wallet through a seed phrase; a phrase composed of a series of mnemonic words that facilitate the recovery of the private keys and, therefore, the funds stored with them. Likewise, Electrum wallets can be synchronized with other types of wallets, such as hardware wallet Ledger o Trezor. This is one of the first wallets developed for Bitcoin, launched in 2011, which now has one of the most important updates in its history, integrating payments in LN that can be made in a much more economical, fast and secure way for users.
Lightning Network on Electrum, better scalability for Bitcoin
Although the integration of Lightning Network into Electrum took longer than expected, Voegtlin believes that this was the best path to improve the scalability of the Bitcoin network. According to Voegtlin, this was not an easy path, but one full of challenges and opportunities that would allow the implementation of much faster, cheaper and more private payments for the network's users.
LN is a second layer solution developed to counteract the scalability problems presented by Bitcoin. Through this network, transactions carried out do not have to wait for confirmations from the users. blocks nor pay commission rates mineros as it happens in the original Bitcoin network. With LN, transactions are not transmitted directly to the network, but are updated through payment channels (payment channels) that are the fundamental basis of the network, and once they are closed, the transactions made are verified and included in a block in the blockchain.
Integration of Watchtowers and Submarine Swaps protocols
Electrum, in addition to integrating the Lightning Network, also integrated the Watchtowers and Submarine SwapsWatchtowers are an innovation that will allow Electrum to ensure that transactions taking place within the network are carried out in the most secure and reliable way possible for users. This innovation will act as a scanner to detect and prevent fraudulent transactions within Electrum.
While Submarine Swaps allow to solve a problem present within LN to make or receive payments, through these exchanges it is possible to send bitcoins to a channel on the LN network so that users have incoming capacity on the network to receive payments. As the developers put it:
“Electrum Technologies runs a central server that facilitates these exchanges, for a fee. This allows users to receive payments in Lightning.”
Finally, the update of Electrum to version 4.0.2 will also allow for better integration of the wallet with other wallets, correcting the incompatibilities that existed as a wallet with Coldcard.
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