The 2018 crypto market was volatile enough to cause serious anxiety among even its most resilient supporters. Despite the sluggish market, the bearish sentiment has not hampered the development of technology, particularly the lightning network. In stark contrast, the year 2018 has witnessed the lightning network make solid progress in both tech development and adoption.

The lightning network has grown significantly in the past year, it now has 7,873 nodes and 39,071 channels, with a total network capacity of more than 1,080 BTC that amounts to over $5 million at its current price, according to data from 1ml.com.

What is lightning network?

Bitcoin has long been plagued by the scalability issues, given that Bitcoin is limited to 1MB block size, only able to handle up to 7 transactions per second while its counterpart Visa/Mastercard are able to handle thousands of transactions per second. Imagine visiting a cafe for a coffee where you are paying a fee in bitcoin that is more than the actual price of coffee itself! And minutes or even an hour might be required to get the transaction through.

In this context, Lightning Network (LN) is considered by many as a solution to Bitcoin’s scaling problems. As a second layer payment protocol on top of Bitcoin, it enables instant and low-cost bitcoin transactions. It features a peer-to-peer system for making micropayments of bitcoin through a network of bidirectional payment channels without delegating custody of funds.

The rollout of lightning network has led many bitcoin enthusiasts to believe that LN will be the key to promote bitcoin payment 2.0. For this goal, LN supporters are active in making it go mainstream.

Will 2019 be the year of LN?

The lightning network has been gaining a lot of traction lately and looks like 2019 is going to be the year that will see major improvements to this network.

Since the start of this year, the bitcoin community has been immersed in the experiment dubbed “Lightning Torch”, which soon turned into a viral crypto game on social media and wan more popularity when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey took over the flame. Simply in one month, the number of LN channels increased by 35.1%, and the number of nodes increased by 15.39%.

This February, Tippin app enables users to send bitcoin tips via the lightning network on Twitter, which is considered a way to make bitcoin transactions feasible at a large scale for the first time.

Why we need a LN logo?

The growth of the lightning network has been remarkable, while the lightning network technology is currently developed by multiple teams with varied software output and their own LN symbols; China, a country with a large concentration of bitcoin activities, is somewhat absent in LN. Without much involvement in Lightning Network (LN), it contributes only 38 nodes and 257 channels (at the time of this writing).

To bring LN supporters together and further promote lightning network in more countries like China, this #LNLogo activity is initiated by Lightning Network Chinese Community established with the joint efforts of a plurality of Chinese blockchain firms including ChainNode, Coldlar wallet, Hoo wallet, Blockstream, BTC.com, Bitpie, AToken, Bepal, Cobo wallet, Bixin wallet (more to come).

So we are here seeking your brilliant design for LN logo as well as the logo for the LN Chinese community.

Plenty of awards for your groovy design!

Timeframe

• Submission: April 8, 2019 – May 15, 2019
• Selection: May 16, 2019 – May 25, 2019
• Result publish: May 26, 2019

Rules

1. Logos for LN are allowed to contain the words “Lightning Network”, “Lightning” or “LN”;
2. Logos for LN Chinese Community are allowed to contain the characters or words “闪电网络中文社区” or “Lightning Network Chinese Community;
3. Your logo should be impressive, groovy, healthy and appealing with a distinct theme;
4. Entries must be original, both hand-drawn and computer graphics works are accepted;
5. Logo designers should give a brief description on the design idea, concept and meaning of the logo.

Way to participate

Reply and upload your logo below this post, or, send your logo design to app@8btc.com with the email subject being LN LOGO Submission #Your Title or LOGO for LN Chinese Community Submission #Your Title

Prizes

LN Logo

The winner (1 person) of Best Design will be awarded

• 1 unit of Coldlar wallet Pro 2 Plus (priced at 4,288 yuan, sponsored by Coldlar)
• 3 million Satoshi (jointly sponsored by BTC.com, AToken and Hoo wallet)
• 1 Hero pen (priced at 40 yuan, sponsored by BTC.com)
• 1 customized Bitcoin wallet of limited edition (sponsored by Bixin)
• 1 customized T-shirt (sponsored by Bitpie)

The finalists (9 persons) will be awarded

• 1 Hero pen (priced at 40 yuan, sponsored by BTC.com) each
• 500,000 Satoshi (jointly sponsored by BTC.com, AToken and Hoo wallet) each

Logo for LN Chinese Community

The winner (1 person) of Best Design will be awarded

• 3 million Satoshi (jointly sponsored by BTC.com, AToken and Hoo wallet)
• 1 Hero pen (priced at 40 yuan, sponsored by BTC.com)
• 1 customized Bitcoin wallet of limited edition (sponsored by Bixin)
• 1 customized T-shirt (sponsored by Bitpie)

The finalists (9 persons) will be awarded

• 1 Hero pen (priced at 40 yuan, sponsored by BTC.com) each
• 500,000 Satoshi (jointly sponsored by BTC.com, AToken and Hoo wallet) each

(Note: the best design winner is not included in the 9 finalists; one can win both awards for the two logo designs)

Notice

1. Works that do not meet the requirements of the activity – inconsistent with the LN theme, containing unhealthy content or with incomplete materials, shall not be selected; Any work sent after the deadline, for whatever reason, is not eligible.
2. The submitted work must be original, which has never been published in a national publication before, and the creator has independent and complete copyright in the work. Anyone found guilty of plagiarism or copyright infringement will be disqualified. Any infringement of others’ copyright, right of portrait, right of reputation, etc., and all legal disputes arising therefrom shall be borne by the applicant.
3. This activity is free of charge, and all the entries will not be returned. The organizer owns the intellectual property rights of the selected and award-winning works, and is entitled to use, develop, modify, authorize, license or protect the works in any form; the applicant shall waive his right to it.
4. The organizer owns the copyright of the submissions and has the right to publish, broadcast and exhibit the collected works.