This demo of an in-game payment made via the Lightning Network (LN) piqued my interest over the weekend and I think it's something your freaks should check out as it presents a clear use case that could drive demand for bitcoin in the future.

In the demo, the player is incited to pay a 150 satoshi fee to open a door. The player then uses their LN wallet to pay the fee instantly, opening the door within seconds. To help you conceptualize this, here's what 150 satoshis is worth at the time of this writing:

A little more than half a penny to unlock the door. This may not seem that significant to you now, but this is an incredible development that may incite a feedback loop that could change the dynamic of in-game commerce, drive demand for BTC, and act as a liquidity provider and talent draw for the LN. The ability to spends fractions of a penny on in-game goods or accessibility is revolutionary. It would be impossible to do this via traditional payment rails like Visa or Mastercard. Currently, companies like Sony handle the accounting of these in-game purchases, which forces their users to hold an account balance with the company so they can transact on the go.

Imagine a world where users hold their own balances on their own nodes or in a browser extension that acts as a hot wallet for small amounts of BTC (<$20) and run from free game to free game using the LN to pay for needed tools and accessibility, funding game developers and enabling in-game economies that were previously impossible due to the inability to leverage microtransactions in such a seamless fashion. This makes me bullish from so many angles. Gaming is one of the biggest and fastest growing industries in the world at the moment. People are spending massive amounts of money on unique skins, dance moves, and avatars in games. This will not change any time soon. If microtransactions via the LN proves to be a better UX for all parties involved and catches on, this will drive massive demand for BTC. More importantly, that demand will be driven by younger generations, who tend to pick up technologies quicker than their elders.

Beyond in-game purchases, users could even battle each other and wager bets on the outcome with the winner taking the satoshis home with him. The opportunities are MASSIVE and they seem to become more inevitable the more I think about a scenario in which some younglings begin to understand Bitcoin innately and dedicate their videogame playing lives to acquiring as many satoshis as possible to take advantage of the possible price appreciation. A mad dash could ensue once word of the opportunity to earn satoshis by playing video games spreads, creating a ton of buying pressure.

We'll be following the developments of in-game LN payments as they continue to progress. Stay tuned.

Noise: in-game NFTs

Signal: in-game LN payments

Final thought...

How much blow did David Byrne do in the 80s?