Financial services and mobile payment company Square thinks it has found a way to turn fiat into crypto in real-time point-of-sale transactions. How it works On Jan. 21, the United States Patent Office awarded Square a patent for a technology that the team argues cracks a present barrier in merchant transactions: “All cryptocurrencies face the same drawback in that they are not widely accepted. Presently, cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are not accepted by most retail merchants, or even by most online merchants.” The team cited a number of drawbacks to current crypto spending. Transactions take a while to process. Minor advances …

Researchers from cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX have suggested that the privacy and scalability benefits of Bitcoin’s (BTC) implementation of the Lightning Network are less than expected. A report published by BitMEX on Jan. 11 illustrates the researchers’ efforts to determine the growth of the Lightning Network by trying to extrapolate information about private payment channels from readily available data. The team focused on non-cooperative channel closures and they suggest that — since the network started its activity — about 60,000 such transactions took place. A non-cooperative channel closure happens when a Lightning Network node initiates the closure of a payment channel …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and crypto store Bitrefill partnered to allow the trading platform’s clients to shop with Bitcoin (BTC) over the Lightning Network. According to a press release published on Dec. 4, Bitfinex users can instantly pay for a variety of services with Bitcoin that they hold on the exchange as of today. A Lightning B2B settlement system Per the press release, the companies attribute the development to the “world’s first dynamic B2B settlement process over the Lightning Network.” The announcement builds on recent news that Bitfinex enabled Bitcoin Lightning Network transactions and that those using it for deposits and …

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has revealed the first of two major upgrades it says will completely change user payments and spending habits. In a tweet on Dec. 2, the platform’s CTO, Paolo Ardoino, confirmed that as of Tuesday, it would support Bitcoin (BTC) transactions on the Lightning Network (LN). The move is a first for a major cryptocurrency exchange, Bitfinex announcing it via its updates mailing list. Exchange eyes free and instant BTC payments Users will benefit from instant transactions and will pay almost zero fees to send funds via Lightning. The reveal appears to correspond to the first of two …

One month on, a Redditor who “lost” 4 Bitcoin (BTC) on the Lightning Network has published advice based on his experience. In a thread posted to the r/Bitcoin community on Dec. 1, Redditor ZipoTm revealed that the Lightning community had given him “huge support” by helping him to save his coins, with most of them now recovered. Don’t Panic, WAIT As reported, the Lightning Network is a second-layer solution to Bitcoin’s scalability limitations, which works by opening payment channels between users that keep the majority of transactions off-chain, turning to the underlying blockchain only to record the net results. In …

The Tor Project, the nonprofit organization behind the anonymous network Tor, announced that it now accepts Bitcoin (BTC) donations via the Lightning Network. The organization announced on Nov. 19 that it will accept Lightning Network donations as part of Bitcoin Tuesday, a fundraising initiative led by the crypto-for-charity organization The Giving Block. Tor recommended the BottlePay wallet for donations, which allows users to search for The Tor Project inside it and send crypto without copying and pasting addresses. The Lightning Network is a layer-2 payment protocol for the Bitcoin network that aims to expedite payments and address the network’s scalability …

Donnerlab, an online gaming platform that builds lightning games and applications, lets gamers hunt for Bitcoin (BTC) and pick-up “Satoshi cubes.” Shoot other players and collect satoshis In a tweet on Nov. 19, Donnerlab announced the launch of its latest project, titled Bitcoin Bounty Hunt, a fully lightning-native multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) game. The Lightning network is a payment protocol that allows for fast, micropayments between two so-called nodes — in this case, gamers. Donnerlabs was founded by twenty-five-year-old Konstantin Nick after the 2018 Lightning Hackday in Munich, Germany, as a means to introduce the world’s largest cryptocurrency to more …

Bond market veteran Nik Bhatia says that with Lightning, Bitcoin (BTC) has become an unprecedented asset by combining a store of value with medium-of-exchange scale and speed. This recognition prompted him to quit his former work for an institutional asset manager trading United States Treasuries on Wall Street, as he outlined in a blog post on Nov. 18. “Unprecedented in human history” Bhatia is now an adjunct professor of finance and economics at the USC Marshall School of Business, whose involvement in Bitcoin has since evolved to include a research role at Bitcoin payments stack developer OpenNode. In his post, …

Bitcoin (BTC) could be worth millions of dollars after 2022 as payment processors allow easier transactions, Tim Draper has forecast. Speaking during a Q&A session at the Malta AI & Blockchain Summit last week, the pro-cryptocurrency venture capitalist said innovations such as the Lightning Network would be key in propelling the Bitcoin price higher. Draper: 4 years until $250,000 BTC Doubling down on previous claims, Draper added he still believed BTC/USD would hit $250,000 by 2022 or 2023. “I think Bitcoin payment processors are really going to open the floodgates,” he summarized. On the topic of why Bitcoin would reach …

Bitcoin payments app Fold now supports home-sharing giant Airbnb, the firm announced on Nov. 11. Now Fold users can get 3% back in Bitcoin (BTC) on every stay and experience booked on Airbnb. $25 and $100 Airbnb gift cards for Bitcoin Airbnb is now listed on its rewards program called Fold Kickbacks. The program supports Bitcoin’s second layer Lightning Network (LN) allowing to buy gift cards for Bitcoin with 3% cashback. Currently, Fold offers $25 or $100 gift cards on its website. Launched in July 2019, the Fold Kickbacks program already supports some big-name retailers including Amazon, Starbucks and Uber. …

Bitcoin-enabled (BTC) games startup Satoshis Games announced the development of a Fortnite-like game with built-in Lightning Network microtransactions dubbed Lightnite on Oct. 19. Shoot to earn Bitcoin Per the announcement, all in-game interactions between players trigger a monetary reward or penalty for the user. Satoshis Games provides some examples: “In simple words, players earn Bitcoin by shooting other players and lose Bitcoin when they get shot.” Furthermore, some in-game items have a Bitcoin value and can be picked up from dead players and the game’s store allows players to purchase items with fiat money or BTC microtransactions. The player’s balances …

What are some of the key points to remember about scalability? It is all about centralization vs. decentralization. For blockchain platforms, the scalability of a given chain often boils down to the level of decentralization possessed by the network. Highly decentralized ecosystems (such as Bitcoin) are quite slow, whereas networks that are more centralized (like EOS, with its 21 Block Producers) are much faster. Therefore, having fewer nodes producing blocks generally makes things faster. However, centralization reduces the interesting properties that blockchains innately possess — namely their resistance to censorship, transparency and overall immutability. Are there any noteworthy blockchain-scaling solutions? …