Lightning Network now has more active nodes than Bitcoin Cash

The Lightning Network might still be in its infancy stages , but it already has more active nodes running than Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

Statistics show that the Lightning Network has taken a slight lead over BCH when it comes to the total number of nodes running on their networks. The data shows there are currently 1,347 Lightning nodes compared to Bitcoin Cash’s 1,286 .

This accomplishment is particularly impressive given that Lightning boasted a measly 29 nodes back in mid-January.

In all fairness, the Lightning Network node count seems to vary depending on where you’re pulling the data from: while at the time of writing this site claims there are 1,347 active notes on the network, this one suggest the number is slightly higher – 1,362 . This discrepancy suggests the stats might be slightly off, though the difference is likely not all that significant.

Among other things, node count data is important as it could be a good measure of a network’s user base and its decentralization factor.

Another thing to point out is that – in comparison to Lightning Network – it appears a large chunk of BCH’s nodes are hosted on Alibaba servers purportedly located in Hangzhou; while this is not necessary problematic, it indicates that most of the Bitcoin Cash mining power is centralized in China:

For the record, while these numbers reflect well on Lightning’s progress, it’s worth noting that the network still has a number hiccups in sight.

A couple of weeks back Bitcoin Core developer Peter Todd hinted the Bitcoin scaling solution could be vulnerable to DoS attacks – in addition to a few other kinks.

Still, that did not stop developer Lightning Labs from securing a bulky $2.5 million investment from the likes of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Litecoin founder Charlie Lee.

Following another round of testing with Lightning, Todd came back to say that contrary to its “beta” status, the network still functions as a product in its “alpha” stage:

Last week the research arm of cryptocurrency exchange desk BitMEX revealed that node count is not the only thing Bitcoin Cash is struggling with.

According to a new study, Bitcoin Cash’s cumulative transaction volume was 31.5-percent lower than SegWit’s – a protocol for the Bitcoin network designed to solve high transaction fees and growing scalability issues .

Cryptocurrency startups bypass Facebook ad ban with sly marketing tricks

As part of its larger efforts to clean up its act, a couple of months back Facebook announced it will no longer allow ads promoting crypto-products and initial coin offerings (ICOs) on its platforms. But it seems that sly marketers have already worked out how to slip cryptocurrency ads past the filtering system.

The worst part is that the trick is ridiculously simple: all it takes to circumvent the cryptocurrency ad ban on the popular social media platform is to avoid using any of the forbidden terms. This is why some marketers have began strategically abbreviating the word “cryptocurrency” to “c-currency” – and other similar variations.

Some users have already taken to Reddit to notify fellow crypto-enthusiasts of this new shifty tactic. In case you were wondering, here’s an ad from yesterday which employs the above-mentioned approach:

This is hardly the first time Facebook has struggled to block crypto-ads on its platform following the ban announcement.

Indeed, days after the company began implementing the new restrictions, we discovered a number of crypto-related ads continued to pop up on Facebook in early February.

A company spokesperson told us that the new ad policy “enforcement will begin to ramp across Facebook platforms over the coming weeks.” It has been more than a month since then.

Shortly after Facebook’s ban, Google and Twitter also followed suit , revealing their intentions to purge crypto-related ads over the next few months. It remains to be seen whether their filtering systems will be any better than Facebook’s though.

Update: A Facebook spokesperson told TNW:

A multi-trillion dollar blockchain use case

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