Lightning Network Purpose

Day 5,464, 03:51 • Published in Croatia Croatia • by Mars and Cars

During the first week of the event I've read all sorts of comments, some saying I'll never download this scam app from the erep dev that wants to pump his startup, or wtf is this fake internet money, whats the point of playing 3 weeks and spending so much resourses on something worth 5$ all together its just such waste.

So lets address these allegations. Firstly, the tech and sats we are using here isnt exclusive. Many wallets are operated off-chain and are used for different purposes. Our current event is just a simple extremely basic introduction of how money can be send peer-to-peer, even with amounts smaller than a cent, anonymously, for free, worldwide and INSTANTLY, without any middle man or third party needing to verify my transaction.

The "fake internet money" comes mostly from people unwilling to do some research and choosing to be oblivious to most of the worlds problems. Jack Dorsey for example has been talking about native internet currency for over a decade, because it is just so important to have digital economy.

And I would like to mention the biggest point. Since most of us here live in 1st and 2nd world countries, most people dont think about what problems could 3rd world countries have, and how could this technology fix real life issues and save millions of lives.
Let mi give you an example with Zimbabwe. Did you know they actually have a 100 000 000 000 000 dollar bill - meaning 100 trillion dollars in 1 bank note. How could this happen? Are they all filthy rich? Exact opposite unfortunately, because their central bank is printing so much new currency, devaluating people's life savings almost overnight. Currently the infamous 100 trillion dollar bill is worth 0.4$ USD cents.

Lets think about how adoption in 3rd world countries would play out. People there are too poor, they dont have ID card, not to speak of banks and such. How about everyone gets a simple smartphone for 100$ or less, the country reserve opens an off-chain wallet and supplies everyone with some satoshis, just like erep is doing, and implements BTC as legal tender, just like El Salvador did last year. That way you are giving an extremey simple and inexpensive alternative that can work anywhere on the world with internet, breaking news Starlink is and will supply so many countries with space satelite internet, no wires needed, just a receiver. That way we will take billions of people out of poverty, give them a deflationary asset that they could actually save in, and appreciate over time.
At the end of the day the country can settle its transactions if needed on the base layer or just choose not to for certain amount of time.

Now imagine something that you couldnt print more, even if there was the need for it, what would happen? Its price will go up, since supply demand rule the market. Let's think about 6-7-8 years ago when Erepublik was actually giving BTC for some event, unfortunately then I was too young and uneducated, had no idea of monetary policy and properties of money. If they gave you the same amount, lets say 10 000 satoshis 8 years ago, they'd be worth over 100 times less.
Not an investment advice of course, but how about in 10 years btc isnt used and adopted only by 200mil people like today, but is used by billions of people and has solved hundreds of problems, even creating new industries. What do you think the price of 10 000 sats will be then, certainly not 5$ in my opinion 😉

Ask me questions, I'm willing to explain if you need anything 🙂