Lightning Network is a project that emerged to add intelligent contracts at Bitcoin Blockchain, of course, if it has its own software and is totally independent of Bitcoin, with its own nodes and network, even This can operate in other Blockchain.
It began being developed by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja (although the project is currently taken Blockstream, Lightning Labs and ACIN).
Lightning Network is described in its Whitepaper as a solution to the growing bitcoin scalability problem, network that can only process blocks every 10 minutes and that it impossible would improve it from that due to the structure in which it works, say how bitcoin is made , then this project seeks to implement a type of P2P payment channels that will work in isolation to the network.
It is expected that millions of transactions per second are expected to be allowed, with the assurance that they will be signed by a special hash through an intelligent contract, which will give security to the parties that are involved in any transaction that occurs in the network; This because as I explain, Lightning Network will work outside Bitcoin, but with network transactions, clearly Lightning Network worked as an automated third party, with which we can perform Bitcoin, safe and fast transactions through a channel very similar to P2P, It worked through intelligent contracts that will work on the Lightning Network network but they will be directly linked to Bitcoin (or any network that decides to attach Lightning Network to improve).
How does it work?
There is an old popular saying that tries to explain that if there is nothing in a forest in which there is nothing to detect the vibratory movement of the air that generates the "sound" can not exist, this Given that no one is there to detect these sound waves and therefore only remains in a disturbance in the air.
Why do I explain this? Well, although it seems not to be related to the subject, it is a very interesting aspect to explain the question of "event relevance" first of all explained, if in a forest nobody hears some sound it really does not matter if it happened or not, it just does not do it Because there is nobody there to listen.
If we take into account this and we apply this logic in the Bitcoin network we can improve its scalability, it happens that the main problem for Bitcoin is that due to its consensus protocol, all of these must process the same transaction to validate it, but .... And if only two nodes are responsible for processing recurring transactions? It would be clearly faster, as this goes against the network in the same way, we can apply the previous logic to simply not disturb any node, at least not momentarily, if I make a transaction and this does not happen through the nodes the network is not overloaded, And although this seems not to have logic is a great way to solve the problem, all if you download the funds of the transaction to a third party.
This third is Lightning Network of course, we can say that it will be a reliable custodian, who will process the transaction of "X" person to "Z" person to make payments of P2P quickly, practically instantaneous in their network, (everything will depend on people) and then process the transactions that occurred at a certain period of time to the Bitcoin network so as not to overload it in certain periods of time and distribute all in the best possible way, Lightning Network is the oracle that works as a bridge among the people in the network of Lightning Network and the information that will be transmitted later to the Bitcoin network.
Its application in real life is the same, simply improve payments in the Bitcoin AA network through the implementation of payment channels, for example in POS networks it is easier to implement scalability in the network because its nodes are allowed to execute models of Database that enables multiple transactions, a more "traditional" model similar to banking to some extent (only as regards your organization and codes in databases).
In Bitcoin it is impossible because its POW protocol that is tolerant of Byzantine faults and clearly too sure makes this impossible, because the network needs the nodes to resolve complex mathematical operations to reach the tolerance and then process the block and therefore the Transactions To execute models of traditional databases, a third, Lightning Network and we can almost magically achieve very fast transactions that only depend on the parties involved, allowing a more attached payment method to reality that I always look for Bitcoin, a method of digital payment, safe, reliable and of course fast for people.
In the future it is even expected that Lightning Network is capable of performing millions to billions of transactions even if it may not be a necessary amount, they are betting to reach perfection and overcome payment methods as a visa that are scalable hyper by themselves and alone Manage around 1670 transactions per second.
A Blockchain Oracle is a type of network that can be divided into various category, taking into account that its concept mainly refer to serve as a bridge between two parts, an information bridge, in the case of Lightning Network, arises as the solution to A problem that is impossible to solve in Bitcoin, that of scalability, which by how the network is designed is impossible to fix, at least in it, Lightning Network finally bets for being a second layer, which would allow to implement intelligent contracts in a Network as Bitcoin who simply does not use them, thus achieving the scenario of chaos that plans. And take it perhaps in the future to be a highly fast and stable network.
Lightning Network will be the oracle that will allow mortals to communicate their requests to the Bitcoin network more efficiently, simply and quickly.