>[D]o Lightning's channels only reduce on-chain transaction volume in the case of recurring payments (eg subscriptions)? Payment channels and consequently the

>[D]o Lightning's channels only reduce on-chain transaction volume in the case of recurring payments (eg subscriptions)? Payment channels and consequently the Lightning Network (LN), assuming a sufficiently connection routing network (the people you want to pay are connected to the LN), reduce the volume of any amount of transactions. LN has the best cost advantage for use cases when the transaction volume is high (paying for wifi by the minute) but will also reduce on-blockchain transaction for anything. If you're seeking a lucid explanation of what the LN is: Imagine a group of people with buckets of coins, to establish a financial-transaction connection with a person in the group you pay a small fee, after connecting to that person, you can pass some coins into that person's bucket who can then pass those coins onto another person's bucket (ad nauseam) all without requiring (but with option if you wanted) to settle the amounts to the blockchain. The LN paper goes into how this is done in a cryptographically enforceable method via the Bitcoin blockchain. >What is the anticipated savings if the Lightning Network is rolled out There are two things to assess the value of the LN. The transactional cost savings but also (and more importantly) the new use cases available to having transaction occur on a roughly 1-2 second timeframe (versus the 10-60 minute window currently). All off-chain databases would have the technological capability to have cryptographically enforced 'instant' payments. Right now, off-chain centralized actors (Coinbase, Bitfinex) just update entries to a database but don't have any blockchain-enforce DB updates. With LN, they could. >how much of current transaction volume could be handled in channels? Could: The majority of it. Would: Depends on LN participant's appetite to dedicate funds to a payment channel (LN coin bucket). It's a trade off of avoided block-transaction fees vs time-value of money of dedicated funds.