Sirlibz
Lightning has announced it’s release of Liquidity marketplace, a peer-to-peer, non-custodial marketplace also known as lightning pool. This marketplace will allow Lightning node operators to buy and sell access to channel Liquidity, it will allow node operators to be paid with the Liquidity provided in the pool to open channels in their direction.
Users can buy or sell Lightning channels, the equivalent of tubes of money, via the Pool marketplace, Merchants and startups who want to receive funds on Lightning are natural buyers of channel liquidity, and node operators with spare capital looking to earn a return on their bitcoin are natural sellers.”Lightning Labs announcement stated .
Lightning Network
A Lightning network is a network of payment channels which allows for faster and cheaper bitcoin transactions. This is possible by settling balances between users on the underlying Bitcoin Network only when these channels close. Those in charge of processing transactions are known as Lightning Node operators and they process transactions through these channels and earn from the fees collected.
For a transaction to be conducted on the Lightning network, one has to convince other node operators to lock up their bitcoin in channels with you. To make this more efficient, Lightning pools were developed as a solution for users seeking participants with available Bitcoin to create channels with. Node operators with access to Liquidity can get paid to allocate it to the highest bidder.
The new device released allows for easier acceptance of Lightning payments and possibility of earning a yield on bitcoin by selling access to the Lightning Liquidity. Business or Node operators can focus more on managing and building their platforms to best satisfy their customers instead of worrying about Liquidity.
How To Get Started
You can get started by downloading the reference Go client, and check out the API for both gRPC and for REST. They plan on building a UI for the pool later for those who would prepare to get off the command line.
