A lightning network payment has been making global rounds on Bitcoin’s secondary layer. The payment, slowly accumulating in value with each passing, is 2.8 ($96) million satoshis strong and still going. Dubbed the Lightning Torch, the payment has changed hands nearly 150 times across 39 countries.Traditionally, participants announce their ownership over Twitter to seek out the next recipient. Hopeful torch bearers respond to the tweets with a lightning network invoice, and after choosing a user to trust, the current holder adds a discretionary amount to the payment’s sum and sends it to the next holder.The experiment has been making an impression on the community; so far, Andreas Antonopoulos has been in on it, and most recently, at the time of this writing, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey even took up the flame from Matt Odell. Yo @jack,You ready to carry the torch? Send me an invoice for 2860000 sats.#LNtrustchain #bitcoin https://t.co/7BmDBidKR6— Matt Odell (@matt_odell) February 5, 2019 The phenomenon is an exercise in restraint, trust and altruism that personifies Bitcoin’s complicated relationship between trusted and trusteless operations and parties. In this way, it’s fitting. The remarkable origin of the initiative is equally as unconventional as its carrythrough: it all arose from the curiosity and educationally incentivized agency of an anonymous Twitter personality masquerading as an astronautical feline.Kind...
