pull down to refresh
231 sats \ 4 replies \ @Jel 30 Jun 2022 \ on: I am Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob, AMA! bitcoin
What kind solutions/improvements need to be developed for lightning to make it usable in areas with a bad internet infrastructure? Where should the focus be, the costumer of the merchant?
Things that are in development are LNURL NFC payment cards and a offline POS terminals. Are this developments in the right direction, or do you think there are important specs that are not being taking in to account at this moment?
You just mentioned them! I love LNURL NFC payment cards. The Bolt card is pretty dope!
Those are the things we need, offline POS terminals, merchants will be key drivers if consumer adoption is to grow.
One other thing that needs to be developed to make lightning more usable in these areas is finding ways to connect it to USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). This will enable millions of people using feature phones to use lightning. It's already the biggest way people use mobile money on the continent.
reply
I think the current NFC cards still needs a lot of improvement. Especially in the field of authorisation. At this moment there is no way to check/approve the amount that will be deducted from the card. I think if a solution is found for this, it can go fast with the adoption.
What is needed to connect Lightning to USSD. Is this something telecom providers need to support? Or is this something that (for example) Bitnob can build?
Wouldn't it be nicer if there was a Mash network available for Lightning payments? I thought that goTenna and Blockstream (https://txtenna.com) are working on this. But than you first need to invest a little bit in hardware before you can use it.
reply
Yes the auth part needs improvements. I think the folks at coincorner have a way out, though not publicly released.
For lightning to work with USSD, it's more of a regulatory than technical issue. It should be pretty easy hacking a USSD <> Lightning connector.
Mesh networks should definitely be a thing in the future, we need more hardware down here
reply
On SN a message about a USSD service for Lightning.
reply