If LN would be initiated this year, bitcoin would have a short term bull run and potential staying power if the demand for bitcoin doesn't outgrow the capabilities of LN ( which it easily could unfortunately). I think LN could be a potential negative turning point for bitcoin, because if it reaches this upgrade then  block stream will have the first mover advantage of collecting small portions of everyone's transactions from the side-chains. Making it fundamentally indifferent from something like ripple.