A miner received almost $200,000 in transaction fees after mining 6.701 bitcoin, which exceeded Bitcoin's current block subsidy. This was due to the recent surge of activity on the blockchain related to the Ordinals protocol, which introduced inscriptions that can be added to sequentially numbered satoshis to create unique, non-fungible tokens. However, the popularity of these tokens has congested the Bitcoin network and caused fees to soar, leading some users and exchanges to consider alternatives such as the Lightning Network. The high fees are having an impact on users who rely on base layer payments, and even Lightning requires an initial on-chain transaction that is now out of reach for many due to the prohibitive costs.

The Bitcoin network is currently facing a major traffic jam, with over 390,000 unconfirmed transactions causing a bottleneck in the mempool. The surge in unconfirmed transactions has led to a staggering 343% increase in transaction fees, which have risen from $1.99 per transaction to a current rate of $8.82 per transaction. The congestion can be attributed to the surge in minting and transferring of BRC20 tokens and Ordinal inscriptions flooding the network.

The "My First Bitcoin" program, a nonprofit initiative in El Salvador, has raised over 1 BTC in donations from Bitcoin education advocates worldwide through a crowdfunding campaign. The donations were sent over the Lightning Network, a layer-2 solution that costs a fraction of legacy payment services. The crowdfunding campaign was boosted by Bitcoin Beach, a circular community in El Salvador that declared it would match all donations to the project until April 27. The Bitcoin community's support for My First Bitcoin's educational efforts in El Salvador demonstrates the potential of Bitcoin to empower individuals and level the playing field.

Bitcoin infrastructure firm Lightning Labs has released an update to Litd, its node management tool, which adds automated fee management, custodial accounts, finer-grained LNC permissions, and the Pool Order Board to simplify Lightning Network usage.

The Bitcoin network is extremely efficient for on-chain settlement, with the ability to settle transactions every 10 minutes. Despite the efficiency, the 10-minute block interval target creates a latency in settlement, making it unideal for minuscule and instantaneous transfers. The Lightning Network has solved this issue by creating a network of payment channels that allow for lower fees and instant settlement. The Lightning Network is settling payments 60,000% to 140,000% more efficiently than credit cards, making it a compelling technology for micropayments and larger transactions. The Lightning Network has a flourishing ecosystem that is continuously growing and being integrated into different applications and services across the globe.

Amboss Technologies, an Oregon-based crypto firm focused on Lightning Network, has raised $4 million in seed funding to provide data analytics to service providers maintaining the network. The round was led by Stillmark and includes participation from Valor Equity Partners, Draper Associates, Fulgur Ventures, and Ride Wave Ventures.

Fresh data from Glassnode demonstrates that Bitcoin's (BTC) Lightning Network is significantly cheaper to use than legacy payment networks.  The median fee rate, or the cost of sending value across the Lightning Network, is 0.0029%, 1,000 times cheaper than that of MasterCard of Visa payment processors. 

Michael Saylor, co-founder of MicroStrategy, has integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into his corporate email address. This allows anyone to use the email address, [email protected], to send bitcoin to the billionaire using The Lightning Address protocol.

April 9 (Cointime) - Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, confirmed in a recent tweet that the cryptocurrency exchange is planning to integrate the Lightning Network on its platform.

The Lightning Network is a second-layer solution for the Bitcoin blockchain, which aims to significantly improve transaction speeds and reduce fees.