The Lightning Network Now Let’s You Buy Products on Amazon With BTC

Exciting news for all you Bitcoin spenders as you will now be able to use the lightning network to shop at the very popular e-commerce site Amazon.

It was announced over the bank holiday weekend by the crypto payment processing startup Moon, that any lightning-enabled wallet can now also be used through Moon’s browser extension. Prior to this lightning feature, around 250 beta users already used Moon to spend crypto on e-commerce sites by connecting the browser extension to exchange accounts like Coinbase.

Speaking to CoinDesk, the CEO of Moon, Ken Kruger said:

“[The extension] will pop up a QR code and it will have the lightning invoice, which you could also copy and paste if you can’t use the QR code for some reason, and you’ll be able to pay with your favorite lightning wallet.”

Although it is worth noting that Amazon has never touched Bitcoin, Kruger declined the specify which traditional financial institutions are helping convert the Bitcoin to fiat on the backend so that Amazon merchants actually receive fiat currency for their goods and services.

Even so, Kruger added that by 2020, the Lightning-enabled feature should work on almost any e-commerce site no matter whether the platform accepts Bitcoin directly.

In making it clear that Moon also manages the payment channel and offers a simple interface for sending payments, Kruger says, “There’s no direct merchant integration.”

“We’re integrating with the Visa and Mastercard networks and we get a cut of the interchange fees that merchants pay every time they receive a credit card transaction.”

Moon was founded in 2018 and quickly grew to a small business of just three people to a company with just $100,000 invested by the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. The accelerator’s managing director, Murat Aktihanoglu spoke to CoinDesk where he said that he sees Moon as one of the anchor’s for crypto businesses with lucrative potential over the next five years.

Aktihanoglu said, “we invested in Moon as a long-term portfolio company.”

Kruger went on to say:

“There’s a lot of opportunities to help solve some of those usability problems and getting people onto the lightning network, increasing adoption in that way. We’re going to engage with other folks in the lightning community to see what people are doing, what they’re working on and if there are any significant gaps. We’d love to step in and help whenever possible.”