Twitter drives BTC payments to the mainstream

Twitter launched one of the largest crypto integrations of any mainstream platform so far, enabling users to share Bitcoin tips through the Lightning Network, a protocol created to make BTC payments faster and cheaper. With the Lightning Network-compatible payments app Strike, the 360 million monthly active users of Twitter will be able to make Bitcoin payments to other Twitter accounts swiftly and without any expenses.

The Lightning Network of Bitcoin is a “layer 2” solution that enables faster and cheaper transactions. Layer2 solutions are speedy parallel blockchains that work similar to HOV lanes on a highway. They are designed to help the entire network to scale. Twitter users can tip in BTC easily now as with any other third-party app.

The tips feature of the micro-blogging app can be used to reward popular creators with more profound use cases emerging. The technology will be able to facilitate free and quick cross-border payments like remittances with Strike rolling out in more countries.
El Salvador made BTC legal tender recently, partly to save Salvadorans around $400 million annually that they paid for money transfer fees.

Twitter has plans of launching NFT authentication soon too, it will come as a badge, shown on profile pictures, marking the NFT owners as authentic.
The company aims to position itself as a Web 3.0 leader. Web3 apps run on decentralized blockchain networks, which is different from centralized cloud providers like Amazon Web Services.

Twitter is not the first creator-driven social platform to integrate the Lightning Network, Substack has enabled BTC payments since August. What makes it unique is the vast user base of Twitter and Bitcoin-focused efforts. The platform’s tipping functionality is helping fulfill Bitcoin’s original promises- digital money made for the internet. The creation is also facilitating the building blocks of the future of the internet.