By Crypto enthusiasts can use their Bitcoin to use the lighthing network in order to shop online at e-commerce sites such as Amazon.
Moon, a crypto payment processing startup announced the news on Sunday that any lightning-integrated wallet can be utilised via Moon’s browser extension. Before the integration of the lightning features, around 250 beta users already made use of Moon to spend crypto on e-commerce sites by connecting the browser extension to crypto exchange accounts such as Coinbase.
CEO of Moon, Ken Kruger stated:
“[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.”
It must however, be noted that Amazon itself never handles the cryptocurrency. Kruger decided to decline specifying which traditional financial institutions are behind the bitcoin to fiat on the backend so that Amazon merchants receive fiat currency for their items. Kruger did however, stated that by 2020 the lightning-enable feauture should work on most e-commerce sites, regardless of the platform accepts bitcoin directly or not.
He added:
“There’s no direct merchant integration.” Clarifying that Moon itself handles the payment channels and offers a simple user interface for sending payments.
He added:
“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 just a year ago in New York and grew to a staff of just three people with a humble $100,000 being invested by the Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator. Murat Aktihanoglu, the accelerator’s managing director, told publications that sees Moon as one of the “anchor” crypto startups with great potential to come over the next half decade.
Aktihanoglu stated:
“We invested in Moon as a long-term portfolio company.”
In addition to this, Kruger stated that his company is considering raising funds via a Series A in 2019.
He added:
“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,” Kruger said. “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.”
The extension lightning network functionality is currently under review by the Chrome Web Store and is expected to launch this coming Wednesday as per a statement by Moon.
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