A Bitcoin (BTC) advocate on Twitter known as ShireHodl, or simply Shire, sent more than 110 micropayments to first-time Bitcoin Lightning users in response to Michael Saylor’s Lightning Network group.
Shire asked those new to Lightning to download a Lightning wallet from the App Store or Google Play Store and send him a QR invoice. To pay the bill, Shire scanned the code with its camera, and Bitcoin’s Lightning Network did the rest. In the tweet, Shire said that he would send 1,000 sats to as many people as he can before he sleeps.
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
OK guys. I sent 76 in the last hour and now I’m tired! Post a bill and I’m sure other bitcoiners will foot the bill.
Speaking to Cointelegraph, Shire said that he has “sent around 110 payments of 1,000 sats.” Sats is short for Satoshis, or the smallest denomination of Bitcoin. There are 100 million Satoshis in 1 Bitcoin. shire said:
“It’s not much, maybe $20 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, making it impossible.”
In all, Shire sent out more than 110 micropayments, effectively onboarding 110 new users to the Lightning Network. The business owner took Lightning adoption of Bitcoin into his own hands because he recognized that many Bitcoin users had not used Lightning before.
Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy, asked more than 60,000 people if they had used Bitcoin Lightning in a survey:
The results of Michael Saylor’s survey inspired Shire to take action. He told Cointelegraph: “60% of the respondents in their survey said they had never used a lightning wallet, so this was little incentive to give it a try.”
Also, I knew the fees would be minuscule and the people participating would be all over the world, which shows how LN is borderless and will enable micropayments for all sorts of future applications.
In fact, in recent news, the Lightning Network has been used to facilitate cross-border payments in Africa.
Shire, a Bitcoin maximalist, added that his experiment and onboarding masterclass only work with Bitcoin: “This can’t be done with shitcoins either. Fees are higher, settlement takes longer.”
“You need instant liquidation of a highly liquid asset to be able to scale this to the world and its applications. Only Bitcoin is capable of fulfilling this role.”
Shire aims to continue sending Satoshis via Lightning to prove that Bitcoin could become global money one day.
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