Bitcoin’s second-layer network processed $1.17 billion through 5.22 million transactions in November 2025.
Lightning Network has surpassed $1 billion in monthly transaction volumes for the first time, according to new data published by River Financial. In November 2025, Bitcoin’s second-layer network processed $1.17 billion through 5.22 million transactions, reaching this milestone despite Bitcoin’s stagnant price performance.
River’s data aggregates anonymized information from major Lightning node operators to provide an estimate of the entire network. The methodology accounts for overlapping channels and extrapolates data to untracked nodes, offering a more accurate picture of the Lightning ecosystem. “This approach allows us to debunk misconceptions that Lightning adoption is not happening,” River stated, citing contributions from entities like ACINQ, Kraken, Breez, Lightspark, LQWD and others, covering over 50% of the network’s capacity.
The number of transactions slightly decreased compared to 2023, which researchers attribute to the decline of micropayment experiments in gaming and messaging sectors that had temporarily inflated activity. While these applications have not achieved sustained adoption, River anticipates future experimentation, particularly with autonomous payments powered by artificial intelligence, which could drive new spikes in network usage. Last week, Lightning Labs released an open-source toolkit that enables AI agents to manage Lightning nodes, make autonomous payments, and host paid services using the network.
Despite being known as a micropayments network, the average Lightning transaction in November 2025 was $223, up from $118 the previous year. Analysts say this reflects today’s dominant use case: moving larger sums between exchanges rather than small daily purchases. “Micropayment theory suggested high-frequency, low-value payments, but the mental costs of transactions for humans limit this behavior,” River explained. “AI agents, which don’t incur mental costs, could change this dynamic, potentially leading to more frequent and lower-amount payments in the future.”
