If I haven’t made it clear enough, I am a Bitcoin bull, and though I have plenty of time for alt-coins and what they’re trying to do, I am under no impression that any of them will overtake Bitcoin. Bitcoin has built a floor for crypto and a peg for value through its hard cap and sound money principles.
It may be boring to some, and it may move slow when compared to the likes of Etehreum and other crypto projects not held back by the strains of decentralisation and having a bustling network with millions traded daily, it’s easy to see why altcoins can race ahead, experiment and break things.
For insiders, Bitcoin feels like it moves at a snail’s pace, which is why I am always so stoked to see improvements and dapps built using Bitcoin or its second-layer solutions. I’m a big fan of the lightning network, and while it still has its growing pains and not much support, it’s slowly starting to see improvements.
I mentioned the launch of liquidity pools on lightning, smart contracts and stable coins, and now we have a chat application.
Chat now on the lightning network
I recently came across Sphinx chat, a dapp that uses the lightning network to offer encrypted chat via the payment channels that are set up on the lightning network. Nodes on the network won’t only move value but other encrypted data such as instant messaging.
We’ve all been so reliant on centralised services from Facebook to WhatsApp, and these applications consolidate a lot of value that is funnelled to silicon valley elites.
This clearly shows that the lightning network has a lot more to it than sending satoshis around at near-instant settlements and making it cheaper to use Bitcoin. It’s a second layer solution that only sees its use cases open up as more money comes into the base chain and developers start to race in and lend their talents to the Bitcoin pool.
It’s all slowly creating the pieces to the puzzle
All these applications are still pretty raw and fragmented. Still, with a lot of the code made open source, it’s only a matter of time before those strings are stitched together to build a robust network that offers Bitcoiners more features than ever before and allowing wallet operators even more flexibility.
I can see a day where your instant messaging app and wallet would be connected, where you can send value instantly with a text like you do on apps like WeChat but with Bitcoin.
- Source: bitcoinmagazine.com
