# Lightning Moves More Than $1 Billion as Bitcoin Usability Debate Continues By Simon Yoon Canonical URL: https://www.tokenpost.com/news/technology/31200 Published: 2026-10-13T14:01:24.000Z Updated: 2026-10-13T14:01:24.000Z Section: Technology > Lightning processed an estimated $1.17 billion across 5.22 million transactions in November 2025, but the figures do not establish mainstream retail adoption. Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning activity has grown to more than $1 billion in estimated monthly payments, but the available data still does not show that the network has become a mainstream replacement for card payments. Lightning processed an estimated $1.17 billion across 5.22 million transactions in Nov. 2025. Monthly volume increased 300% during 2025, while the average transaction reached $223. The figures demonstrate substantial network activity but do not show how often consumers use Lightning at retail checkout. The November estimate also remained below the 6.6 million-transaction peak recorded in Aug. 2023. The adoption debate intensified after Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc criticized the network’s user experience in an Oct. 4 post on X. “Most people don’t realize how bad the Lightning Network is,” Sztorc wrote. Sztorc also claimed custodial services process more than 80% of Lightning payments. That share cannot be established from public network data because Lightning payments are designed to preserve privacy. A historical estimate found one self-custodial user for every eight custodial users in 2023, but that does not establish the current split. Commercial payment data offers a narrower view. One crypto checkout network processed 782,403 paid orders from Jan. through June 2026, up 21.4% from the same period a year earlier. Lightning accounted for 9.6% of Bitcoin payments on the platform, compared with 11.3% in the platform’s 2025 report; the periods and measurement methods differ. Those figures cover one platform and use different periods and measurement methods. They cannot be treated as a measure of global Lightning adoption. Bitcoin represented 21.0% of the platform’s orders, compared with 22.1% for USD Coin (USDC), while merchants settled 75.4% of orders into fiat and 24.6% in crypto. Lightning moves payments away from Bitcoin’s base blockchain through payment channels and routing between participating nodes. Earlier wallets required users and merchants to manage channels, liquidity and other technical details. Newer wallets and infrastructure providers increasingly handle those functions in the background. That change reduces the technical burden for users but raises a central question about the network’s development: whether Lightning is becoming easier to use through custodial intermediaries rather than through direct, self-custodial payments. Alex Bosworth, a Lightning liquidity developer, described the tradeoff this way: “The painful truth is that in a setup with privacy and p2p etc it’s extremely slow compared to tap to pay.” Reliability estimates are more favorable but remain limited. A simulation estimated a 99.66% success rate for $100 Lightning payments in a modeled core network. The modeled result does not show how Lightning performs for all users, wallets, routes, payment amounts or merchant configurations. “For everyday payments of around $100, most users can achieve 99% reliability in the core network,” said Jesse Shrader, Amboss co-founder and CEO. Danny Stagg, marketing lead at Breez, said the criticism reflects earlier problems more than current development. “The criticism is not fair in 2026, but historically it was,” Stagg said. Commercial payment integrations are also appearing. [WhiteBIT added Lightning support for Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals](), giving users another route for exchange funding. The evidence points to technical progress, meaningful transaction activity and wider commercial use. It does not yet establish that ordinary consumers are using Lightning often enough, or reliably enough, to replace the payment systems they already know. ## Links in this article - [WhiteBIT added Lightning support for Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals](https://www.tokenpost.com/news/business/28441)