88% of Lightning Network Nodes are Run in North America and Europe

Other regions such as Asia are running Bitcoin nodes of 6.2%, with Oceania at 2.2%, South America at 0.8%, and South Africa at 0.6%.

Lightning Networks Quite Popular in Urban Regions

The study shows a highly contrasting figure between Bitcoin adoption and the number of nodes distributed in a region.

For example, Latin America is one such region with a high Bitcoin adoption rate. However, the region has less than 1% running lightning network nodes. Similar data is seen in the case of Africa.

The study highlights that Lightning Networks are quite popular in urban regions. Perhaps, due to better infrastructure facilities and connectivities for running nodes. The researchers further revealed that many of the nodes open channels with peers sharing a homogenous culture and language.

For example, 80% of Argentina’s payment channels are shared with Uruguay, 10% with Peru, and about 4% with Chile and Venezuela. Kenya shares more than 70% of its channels with South Africa. While China shares channels with Taiwan and Hong Kong, Croatia with Czechia and Bulgaria, and Mexico with Colombia, Chile, Puerto Rico, and Argentina.

Lightning Network Solutions Continues to Grow

Lightning Labs is one of the leading developers of Bitcoin’s layer two scaling solutions registered in the U.S. Meanwhile, Blockstream is registered in Canada and is one of the largest developer firms of Bitcoin.

Lightning Network is a paramount layer-two development solution available on the Bitcoin blockchain. As Bitcoin adoption continues to climb, the need for the network’s scalability solutions continues to grow too. According to 1ML, a lightning network tracking site, there are currently over 14200 Lightning Network nodes running with a capacity of over 1039 BTC.