What would be mind-blowing is if Twitter comes full-circle and adds a podcast player to their service, using this lighting/tip functionality as part of the Podcasting 2.0 value block. For people with long memories, Twitter grew from the ashes of Odeo which was supposed to be a Podcasting company with an industry-leading interface written in Flash (ah.. the memories!).
The most exciting part of this, to me, is that Twitter is using the Lightning network for "tips" (personally I hate calling it a tip: kudos, boost, or almost any other word would have been better). The folks at Podcasting 2.0 have been using the Lightning network for the last year as a way of monetizing podcasts real-time (sats/minute) and through "boosts" (like Twitter's tip concept but with a far better name) and has been a rousing success for those who have gotten on board.
This enlarges Twitter from a social platform to a payment gateway. I didn't get it until I watched this video that shows a near-instant money transfer from Chicago to El Salvador, calling it a "Western Union killer": <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByPewKAiZA" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SByPewKAiZA</a><p>Beyond huge for the diaspora sending money back home. Bitcoin's volatility is a problem, but widespread adoption (or adding a stablecoin/altcoin) would mitigate that issue.
Pretty stupid self-serving "move". Nobody tips in Bitcoin as it's too expensive, unlike with credit cards, where you get cashback, with Bitcoin, you pay ridiculously high fees.
[dupe] from last week<p>plenty of discussion over here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28632373" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28632373</a>