[2018-04-17] Lightning + NFC? The New Plan to Bring Bitcoin to Retail

[Karartma1]

Imagine a way to expand bitcoin payments to millions per second. Now, imagine a clunky, command-line interface.
That's the extent of the divide between the vision enabled by bitcoin's best-yet scaling solution, the lightning network, and the current state of its design. But while that's daunting, developers are moving ahead on designs to make the payment system easier to use, with one recently submitting a proposal for connecting lightning with a payment technology that could make it feel as futuristic as it's touted.
That payment technology, near-field communication, or NFC, would allow a user to pay for an item just by holding their smartphone an inch away from the device it's paying.

Read more https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-nfc-new-plan-bring-bitcoin-retail/

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[davis196]

Imagine a way to expand bitcoin payments to millions per second. Now, imagine a clunky, command-line interface.
That's the extent of the divide between the vision enabled by bitcoin's best-yet scaling solution, the lightning network, and the current state of its design. But while that's daunting, developers are moving ahead on designs to make the payment system easier to use, with one recently submitting a proposal for connecting lightning with a payment technology that could make it feel as futuristic as it's touted.
That payment technology, near-field communication, or NFC, would allow a user to pay for an item just by holding their smartphone an inch away from the device it's paying.

Read more https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-nfc-new-plan-bring-bitcoin-retail/

Implemeting the NFC technology for retail crypto payments would be great,but I`m wondering what`s going on  with the Lightning Network project.I remember that a few million  USD were invested in this project and there`s still no result.I still can`t say is LN something good for BTC or something bad?
It will make payments instant,which is good,but I think it will act as a centralized middleman(between the blockchain and the online retail companies),that will take control over everything and act as a monopoly.Anyway,this is just my theory.

[Carlton Banks]

I`m wondering what`s going on  with the Lightning Network project.I remember that a few million  USD were invested in this project and there`s still no result.I still can`t say is LN something good for BTC or something bad?
It will make payments instant,which is good,but I think it will act as a centralized middleman(between the blockchain and the online retail companies),that will take control over everything and act as a monopoly.Anyway,this is just my theory.

That's almost 100% wrong, you've got no idea what you're talking about


Lightning has been running for a few months now, there are thousands of channels and thousands of nodes

[hatshepsut93]

It will make payments instant,which is good,but I think it will act as a centralized middleman(between the blockchain and the online retail companies),that will take control over everything and act as a monopoly.Anyway,this is just my theory.

That's completely wrong, there's no centralized middleman, LN is a peer-to-peer network where users can connect to whomever they want and choose any possible routes for their transactions. And you don't have to giveup control over your coins and trust to any third parties, Lightning has many mechanism that strongly panic any attempts to cheat. Some people have concerns over large heavily-connected hubs, but this is not a big issue, because no one forces users to connect to those hubs.

[Notcalculator]

I guess one of the problems btc has to overcome to get mass adoption is how easy it is to use. When it gets easy to accept and send btc securely then surely people would start using it more. The problem is people want the "difficult" part abstracted to them. We need software that does that while ensuring security.

[1Referee]

I seriously can't wait for brick and mortar stores to accept Bitcoin. Currently people where I live settle nearly all their in-store transactions with their NFC enabled bank card in an instant, and if people can achieve the same level of convenience with Bitcoin, and that at ultra low cost, people basically won't need to convert Bitcoin to fiat anymore to do their grocery shopping and whatnot.

Another major plus is that brick and mortar stores will be able to offer ~2% discounts if people end up paying with Bitcoin, because instead of the stores losing like 3% in fees to greedy financial payment services for every customer payment, they can offer that as 'cash back' to those who end up settling their transactions in Bitcoin. Imagine how things will be when the economy as a whole starts utilizing LN, this will be a massive blow in the face of Visa and LoserCard.

Let it come. Let's bring down these greedy bastards, can't wait!

[BitcoinGuruOne]

Imagine a way to expand bitcoin payments to millions per second. Now, imagine a clunky, command-line interface.
That's the extent of the divide between the vision enabled by bitcoin's best-yet scaling solution, the lightning network, and the current state of its design. But while that's daunting, developers are moving ahead on designs to make the payment system easier to use, with one recently submitting a proposal for connecting lightning with a payment technology that could make it feel as futuristic as it's touted.
That payment technology, near-field communication, or NFC, would allow a user to pay for an item just by holding their smartphone an inch away from the device it's paying.

Read more https://www.coindesk.com/lightning-nfc-new-plan-bring-bitcoin-retail/

i think that this is the way to go if we want to go ahead with mass adoption to any extent.
I dont belive that LN is absolutely nessecary for this to happen ( at least to start to happen), more importantly we need retailers which have crypto POS terminals where customers can use NFC.