Lightning Network 101 — The Bitcoin Layer 2 Network for Micropayments

The bitcoin network can only handle up to 7 transactions per second with 1MB block size and an average 15 minutes to one hour block confirmation time. Bitcoin, by its design, isn't technically limited or constrained, but it lacks the'scalability factor' which can be solved. Scalability Trilemma states that any blockchain can only have two of the following three properties: Scalability, security, decentralization and the ability to handle billions of transactions. Lightning Network uses a variety of techniques to save the space in a bitcoin block to save more transactions.