Bitcoin’s Lightning Network is Now Digital Asset Compatible

With Bitcoin’s Lightning Network nearing launch, the number of tests seeking to upgrade the micropayments network is on the rise.
Now, industry startup Colu has unveiled a demo of how Lightning could be made compatible with colored coins (a technology that enables small amounts of bitcoin to represent other assets, such as the US dollar, stocks, or even houses or cars). Mashing this concept together with Lightning could mean more of these transfers at a higher speed.
Users can now send test transactions over the so-called “off-chain” network using Colu’s demo, which perhaps offers the first user-experience for a Lightning Network project. The team worked with the startup Lightning Labs, tweaking its existing code to make it compatible with colored coins.
But are near-limitless transfers of mortgage records really necessary?
Colu co-founder and VP blockchain Mark Smargon said that he thinks that this functionality could help solve one of colored coins’ bigger problems, while conceding that it might not be necessary for every use case.
He told CoinDesk:

This post was published at Coin Desk on November 16, 2016.