A Twitter user from the United Kingdom spent hours sending micropayments to strangers on the internet to demonstrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
A Bitcoin (BTC) advocate on Twitter known by the name of ShireHodl, or simply Shire, sent over 110 micropayments to first-time Bitcoin Lightning users in response to Michael Saylor's Lightning Network poll.
Shire asked those new to Lightning to download a Lightning wallet from the App Store or Google Play Store and to send him a QR code invoice. To pay the invoice, Shire scanned the code with his camera, and the Bitcoin Lightning Network did the rest. In the tweet, Shire said he’d send 1,000 sats to as many people as he can be bothered to before going to sleep.
OK guys. Sent 76 over the past hour and now I'm tired! Post an invoice and I'm sure other bitcoiners will pick up the tab though pic.twitter.com/dWytGmsjyf
— Shire (@ShireHODL) December 5, 2022
Speaking with Cointelegraph, Shire said that he has “sent out about 110 payments of 1000 sats.” Sats are short for satoshis, the smallest Bitcoin denomination. There are 100 million satoshis in 1 Bitcoin. Shire said:
“It's not much, maybe $20 in total, but the total fee is less than a penny. Using a credit card or debit card, the fees would have been more than the value transferred, so it would have been impossible."
In all, Shire sent over 110 micropayments — effectively onboarding 110 new users to the Lightning Network. The business owner took Bitcoin Lightning's adoption into his own hands because he recognized that many Bitcoin users had not used Lightning before.
Michael Saylor, Executive Chairman of Microstrategy, asked over 60,000 people if they had used Bitcoin Lightning in a poll:
More than 60,000 people replied, with the results inspiring Shire to take action. He told Cointelegraph, “60% of respondents in his poll said they have never used a Lightning wallet, so this was a small incentive to give it a go."
“Also, I knew the fees would be minuscule and that people taking part would be all over the world, demonstrating how LN is borderless and will enable micropayments for all kinds of future applications.”
Indeed, the Lightning Network has recently been used to facilitate cross-border payments across Africa.
Related: Bitcoin without internet: SMS service allows sending BTC with a text
Shire, a Bitcoin maximalist, added that his experiment and onboarding masterclass only works with BTC: “This can't be done with shitcoins. [...] Fees are higher, settlement takes longer.”
“You need instant settlement on an asset with deep liquidity to be able to scale this to the world and its applications. Only Bitcoin is capable of fulfilling this role.”
Shire plans to continue sending satoshis over Lightning to demonstrate that Bitcoin might become global money someday.
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