The Bitcoin Lightning Network was once the crown jewel of Bitcoin’s scaling story, a living map of open channels and growing liquidity that reflected adoption in real time.
However, as the network matures, the picture has faded. Behind the steady decline in public Bitcoin Lightning capacity lies a quiet transformation: exchanges, wallets, and merchants are sending more payments than ever through off-the-charts private and custodial paths.
The metric we’ve long trusted to gauge Lightning’s health may now be telling the wrong story.
Public lightning The capacity currently stands at approximately 4,132 BTC. The number of nodes is 16,294 and the number of channels is 41,118, with an average rate of 794 ppm and an average base rate of 947 mSats.
The graph remains below 2024 levels as payments consolidate into exchange routes, private channels and stablecoin pilots that do not register in a public capacity.
The August local low near 3,600 BTC provides a clean baseline to monitor the recovery. The trajectory corresponds to a well-documented gap between the collateral posted on public channels and the payments flowing through the exchange’s custodial edges, private links, and multi-path routing.
That gap is widening as major platforms push withdrawals and deposits via Lightning and as wallets increase liquidity without opening new public channels. Us The recent statement of the capacity trend highlights the key point that views declining public figures as consolidation rather than a decline in utility.
Exchanges now represent a significant portion of real transit.
Coinbase has Lightning live for customers. OKX supports Lightning deposits and withdrawals with documented boundaries. Kraken introduced Lightning April 2022. Binance completed integration in July 2023. As these locations route a larger portion of flows through Lightning, fewer public channels will be able to handle more payments, so metered capacity may decrease even as utility per BTC increases.
Data points from traders and processors fill in the demand side. Mint Gate reported that the share of BTC payments to merchants routed via Lightning nearly doubled between 2023 and the first half of 2024, reaching the mid-teens, a trend that has continued through 2025.
Japan’s Mercari introduces BTC payments in its marketplace app with yen settlement for sellers. South Africa’s Pick’n Pay completed a Lightning rollout through national-scale partners. A 2025 report van Breez and 1A1z claim that more than 650 million people have “access” to Bitcoin payments through Lightning-enabled apps and exchanges, which represents a total of reachable users, even if active usage is smaller.
The next stage revolves around stablecoins.
Tether announced on January 30 that USDt is coming to Bitcoin via Lightning using Taproot Assets, opening dollar-denominated corridors on Lightning rails. Lightning Labs is positioning the tool as a path for stablecoin issuers and payment processors to route dollar flows with Lightning settlement.
If major exchanges and processors add USDt in addition to BTC via Lightning, transaction sizes and volumes may grow without a commensurate increase in publicly posted channel collateral, further weakening capacity as a proxy for activity.
Wallet and protocol upgrades explain the shift from more routes to better routes. Splitting allows wallets to shrink existing channels instead of opening new ones, reducing visible channel churn and improving liquidity placement.
Double funding improves initial balance distribution when opening channels, reducing over-provisioning. BOUT12 offers allow for reusable payment requests with recipient privacy and smoother recurring flows.
These changes encourage network operators to implement fewer channels with higher throughput per route, a design that reduces public capacity without jeopardizing payment success rates.
A quick snapshot of the latest network statistics helps anchor the present tense of the story:
| Metric | Latest | Short-term change |
|---|---|---|
| Network capacity | 4,132 BTC (~$453 million) | Recovered from the local low of late August |
| Nodes | 16,294 | -6.8% d/d |
| Channels | 41,118 | -2.5% d/d |
| Avg. channel capacity | 9,820,993 sats (~$10,763) | — |
| Average rate | 794 ppm | +3.2% d/d |
| Avg. basic rate | 947 mSats | -0.2% d/d |
Security and policy remain variables for operators and liquidity providers. Post-mortems on replacement cycles and channel failure research show sustained mitigations without network-wide losses.
Regulatory exceptions can be local, as seen when Kraken shut down Lightning in Germany in 2024, while maintaining global support. These factors can influence the incentives for node operators, which in turn affect the amount of liquidity poured into public channels versus private or custodial routes.
Scenario planning helps set expectations for the coming year without relying solely on capacity.
The base case features public capacity in the 3,500 to 4,800 BTC range, with higher dollar throughput as exchanges route a greater portion of withdrawals via Lightning, and USDt pilots come online.
An upward path, driven by USDt corridors and broader processor support, will increase capacity to 4,500 to 6,500 BTC even as more traffic goes private, while exchange routing sees some withdrawals reach the teens to mid-20s.
On the downside, continued fee pressure and local policy frictions are pulling capacity to 3,000 BTC and slowing adoption by merchants outside of crypto-native industries. These paths rely on wallet UX upgrades, exchange connectivity, reimbursement terms, and the pace of Taproot Assets integrations.
| Scenario | Public capacity | Exchange routing via LN | Merchant LN share change | Primary motivations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Consolidation base | 3,500–4,800 BTC | 10-20% of BTC withdrawals | +3 to +6 percentage points versus 2024 | BOLT12, splicing, Coinbase and OKX routing, first USDt corridors |
| USDt elevator | 4,500–6,500 BTC | 20-30% of BTC withdrawals | Broader coverage for sellers | Tether and Taproot Assets tools, processors add USDt via Lightning |
| Compensation or policy delay | ~3,000 BTC test | Lower exchange routing | Slower outside crypto-native niches | High fees, local rules that limit the edges of LN |
The working framework for the end of 2025 is clear.
Public capacity is a lagging and incomplete measure because throughput is concentrated on fewer, more capable routes and on holding edges that are not advertised.
Exchange integrations determine transport, wallet upgrades cleanse liquidity and USDt via Lightning opens dollar corridors.
The latest capacity of 4,132 BTC is the starting line to monitor whether the utility per BTC of visible capacity continues to increase.
