First Real Bitcoin Lightning Network Payment Completed via Bitrefill

[TheCoinFinder]

Software developer Alex Bosworth has revealed that he successfully completed the first lightning bitcoin mainnet (not a testing environment) transaction for an online purchase at Bitrefill. He paid his own actual phone bill with no fees, which executed instantly.

https://twitter.com/alexbosworth/status/946175898029395968

What do you think guys , does this solve the fee and speed problem ?

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[LoyceV]

What do you think guys , does this solve the fee and speed problem ?

Not until I can actually use it too.

Development is taking way too long. Meanwhile Bitcoin keeps losing market share, and many wallets (including Core) don't even allow easy creation of SegWit addresses. It seems like LN is at least a year away, while it was needed already 2 years ago.

[nokati]

What do you think guys , does this solve the fee and speed problem ?

Not until I can actually use it too.

Development is taking way too long. Meanwhile Bitcoin keeps losing market share, and many wallets (including Core) don't even allow easy creation of SegWit addresses. It seems like LN is at least a year away, while it was needed already 2 years ago.

I am totally agree that it takes way to long now, but for segwit use samurai wallet on Android, I have used it today and it works fast and cheap. Give it a try as normal fees are a joke.

[micoholic]

It's about time that this lightning network will be fully applied. There are a lot of people heavily affected by this slow transaction and ridiculous high fees, just to get the confirmation make it faster. Only the rich one's are currently benefited with Bitcoin, which makes it more centralized rather being decentralized. Once it is fully implemented and can use it publicly, that's the time we will be able to determine whether it will solve the speed process and fees.

[13abyknight]

What do you think guys , does this solve the fee and speed problem ?

All we can do is wait till it is completely given a green signal and figure it out for ourselves. I still believe it will massively relieve the network congestion that is being caused due to transactions populating the mempool and also reduce the fees by a huge margin compared to the current fees situation.

[nicosey]

Aren't all the other alts further away from having payment channels?

[nokati]

Aren't all the other alts further away from having payment channels?

Yes they are, bitcoin had/have already couple of years head start and was at the point to really breaking as a payment option but got stock because of the fee. Once the lightning network rolls out and work as it should, bitcoin will have a new massive launch. The marchant and exchanges network are already there, just low fee and bitcoin lanch as a rocket again.

[nokati]

P. S: don't forget the segwit, there is still not implemented yet by all the wallets and exchanges. That should also reduce the load and give much lower fee for every one. I has installed the samurai android wallet couple of days ago which supports segwit adress and could not be happier. Finally I can use bitcoin for normal payments again.

[alani123]

Aren't all the other alts further away from having payment channels?

I don't think so. There are altcoins with a greater transaction/s capacity and lower fees. But bitcoin would still act as an entry gate to aquiring as well as cashing out most altcoins. I think that as long as bitcoin remains the strongest in exchanges it'd probably be at the top of payments too. But we can't rely on speculation and acceptance forever because alts are gaining ground, especially amid the current altcoin bubble.

[nokati]

Thats way the dev need to hurry up and get the LN up asap. Let's hope they act fast now

[squatter]

What do you think guys , does this solve the fee and speed problem ?

Not until I can actually use it too.

Development is taking way too long.

Is that being fair? Not only is this open source software, but hardening LN against all edge cases is no easy feat. I'm also worried that massive amounts of coins will move into LN upon launch of publicly available wallets. Developers need to take the utmost care to ensure that coins aren't lost interfacing with LN.

Meanwhile Bitcoin keeps losing market share, and many wallets (including Core) don't even allow easy creation of SegWit addresses. It seems like LN is at least a year away, while it was needed already 2 years ago.

Market share vs. altcoins doesn't matter. That's the wrong approach. "Move fast and break things because X or Y coin developers move quicker" isn't reasonable. Has Lightning been integrated into an altcoin? If not, why not?

Once LN is widely deployed, Bitcoin is likely to regain significant market share from any coin whose value is derived from fast/cheap transactions.