Lightning Network Technology Set to Revolutionize Payments Worldwide

Many bitcoin enthusiasts saw bitcoin as a superior means of payment. This is of course, was quickly hindered by the issues with the technology’s limitations. Crypto enthusiasts may rejoice because many of these issues can be overcome with the Lightning Network technology.

Many engineers have worked on addressing the issues, but updating bitcoin’s underlying software is not such an easy task. Instead of reworking/updating the entire tech from the ground up, Lightning Network technology essentially adds another extra layer to the technology. The extra layer makes transactions faster and cheaper while at the same time offering the security backing of the blockchain.

Suggestions about the technology’s implementation started floating around as early as 2015, and it has since progressed steadily over the years. It’s also very important to note that one of the key issues is making the Lightning apps easy to use.

Lightning Network Technology must undergo the long road of simplification

A user-friendly interface is almost a must in today’s world. For instance, Zap which is a Lightning desktop app, has the requirement of configuration on nodes and plugs for the IP address. Modern money applications offer these options, but even very advanced users rarely make use of them. Usually technical details are hidden from ordinary users for the sake of simplification. The technology can potentially allow cryptocurrencies to ignore card networks and other payment startups by using the traditional trails.

Another app, SatoshiTweet allows its users to pay via a satoshi unit and send a tweet from a joint account. This is all done via the lightning network. Paying for tweeting isn’t what many people would do, but a single satoshi is worth a fraction of a penny. This is practically unheard of in modern mass accepted payment systems. This eenie-meenie form of payment can open the doors to many new business models.

Lightning does have the potential to allow cryptocurrencies to outpace traditional forms of payment. Let’s take online gambling as an example. Using a standard network for payments such as Paypal, you couldn’t send a small amount, like say 1000 satoshi or a little over $0.05. This amount is basically the same as the transaction fee and will be completely devoured by it. If we’re talking about online gambling and casinos, they charge a minimum fee for every single play recorded. Lightning network technology will allow a more consistent revenue stream, faster and safer payments. Bitcoin users are required to wait for a miner-confirmation, but Lightning makes real-time payments a snap of the fingers just as long as users have established a payment channel.

Lightning Network Technology’s possibilities are endless

This amount of freedom opens infinite doors of possibilities. Satoshi’s place, an app allowing users to pay a single satoshi unit for painting a single pixel on a 1 million pixel canvas, gathered incredible attention recently.

While this is just a simple example of the endless possibilities and even though a lot of people are starting to make use of this technology, it’s still very hard to set up properly. It’s very far from the convenience and ease that most traditional payment apps offer.

However, people must always remember that Rome was not built in a day.

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