Lightning Labs has introduced lnd 0.4-beta – a beta version of Lightning Protocol implementation, which the developers consider to be quite functional and safe for use in the core network of bitcoin. The startup also announced that it has raised $2.5 million funding from a number of investors, including Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
“We call this release a beta because it has the security, resiliency and security features that we believe are necessary in order for early users to experiment with small amounts of real bitcoins and litecoin,” said CTO Lightning Labs Olaoluwa Osuntokun (Olaoluwa Osuntokun).
Generally, the network of Lightning are available for use in December, however, all the nodes in it (which is already more than 1000) work in test mode and it is possible complete loss of funds.
Now all those people who have opened payment channels with previous releases Lightning should close these channels before upgrading to the latest version.
A significant difference in the new version is the fact that it is compatible with various implementations of bitcoin. If the alpha version relied on btcd to interact with bloccano bitcoin, lnd 0.4-beta allows users to use their preferred server, including bitcoind, Bcoin and others.
Among other innovations appear on the new format of seeders for private keys, specially designed for Lightning; increased resiliency; improved routing of payments, as well as bug fixes and other changes.
In addition to the release of the beta version of its SOFTWARE, Lightning Labs also announced it has raised $2.5 million from investors, including Litecoin Creator Charlie Lee (Charlie Lee), CTO of BitGo Ben Davenport (Ben Davenport), head of Twitter and Square Jack Dorsey (Jack Dorsey), a former COO of PayPal and founder of Yammer David sacks (David Sacks) and others.
Lightning Lab CEO Elizabeth stark (Elizabeth Stark) is sure that the beta FOR and obtained the funding will enable technology Lightning Network to move to a new level of development. However, she added that Lightning is not only scalable, but is also a platform for application development.
In the future, Lightning Labs plans to introduce in Ind a number of new features, including atomic multi-channel payments use routing tools to operators nodes and others. Although already compatible with Bitcoin and Litecoin, these networks are not yet compatible with each other. The solution to this problem the developers also intend to offer over time.
It should be noted that although the output lnd 0.4 marks an important milestone in the development of a Lightning Network, this is still a beta version, so its use is risky due to the possible presence of bugs.
“So right now, users do not need to invest in Lightning more money than they are willing to lose,” warned stark.
In Lightning Labs note that the lnd version 0.4-beta is targeted primarily at developers and advanced users.
With all the details of the release can be found here.
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