💡Introduction

The Lightning Network is a network layered on top of the Bitcoin network, designed to enhance the scalability of the Bitcoin network. By processing transactions off-chain and using a secure underlying network as an arbitration layer, the Lightning Network enables trustless, instant, and private payments with very low fees.

1. Bitcoin Network: Serves as the base layer for the operation of the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network uses the underlying blockchain to execute transactions for opening/closing channels and to monitor related channel state events.

2. Lightning Network: A peer-to-peer network layer built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, which allows Lightning Network nodes to connect and share payment channels for participating in transaction activities.

Therefore, developing applications based on the Lightning Network requires the use of two different software components:

1. Bitcoin Node: Some node implementations can be used to create interfaces with the underlying blockchain. Among these, the most popular and widely used are Bitcoin Core (bitcoind) and btcd.

2. Lightning Network Node: The Lightning Network node/daemon is the main application component for connecting and interacting with the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network daemon is a local server responsible for managing databases, connecting peer nodes, opening/closing channels, generating payment invoices (used to request payments), sending payments, etc. The Lightning Network node needs to remain synchronized with the Bitcoin node to function. In most application development scenarios, the application interacts only with the Lightning Network node.

The typical architecture of a Lightning Network application is as follows: