Crypto.IQ Daily Digest June 25, 2018

BITCOIN • THE MARKET • ADOPTION

Bitcoin Isn’t As Volatile As People Claim – Research Shows

+ IQ THOUGHTS

We’re bullish on Bitcoin because we fully understand how solid the fundamentals behind it are, but this research showing less than expected volatility is also welcome news.

Say Bitcoin and people think volatile, and that’s the reason many potential investors are waiting on the sidelines or opting out completely from being part of the Bitcoin revolution. They’re not yet jumping in as HODLers or as users of this digital currency that so many believe is the future of money.

But this research shows that Bitcoin is the least volatile cryptocurrency compared to Litecoin, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, and Ripple. Researchers used the average daily change in price as a metric and averaged the absolute value of daily percentage returns for each cryptocurrency and year to reach their conclusion.

We expect there to be more swings as Bitcoin continues to mature, but research showing a trend toward more stability tells us which way we’re headed, and that’s good for Bitcoin and for cryptocurrency in general.

TECH • SECOND LAYER SOLUTIONS • THE LIGHTNING NETWORK

Announcing c-lightning 0.6

+ IQ THOUGHTS

We’ve been following second layers scaling solutions for a while now, and we like what we’re seeing with the three labs that are developing the Lightning Network

Few things in crypto are sung to the tune of Kumbaya, and this is a healthy aspect of the space, so we’re not knocking dissent. But it’s good to see the three labs developing Lightning Network collaborating so closely that competitors are patting each other on the back and describing their shared space as a “pleasant, collaborative and open environment.”

We think this bodes well for the success of the network and the future success of Bitcoin.

As you know from our previous writings about Lightning Network, we see this second layer solution that makes the Bitcoin blockchain more efficient at handling transactions as a development that is crucial to Bitcoin’s future success.

Something has to absorb what will be exponential growth in the number of transactions as Bitcoin adoption spreads across the globe.

And so far, thanks to collaboration by these disparate teams of developers, Lightning Network is a booming success. And that’s despite the detractors — the “big block” BCash crowd, for instance — who predicted, maybe hoped for, its ultimate failure.

When it was first launched, when the Blockstream Store opened and offered the first products you could buy using Lightning, the network had 46 channels. Today, there are even more open channels and capacity than the 7,800 this article reports.

That doesn’t look like failure to us.