Bitcoin’s “lightning torch” saw none other than Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey snatch up the ongoing payment experiment and pass it on Tuesday.
As CoinDesk reported today, users have been passing around a so-called “lightning torch” – a running game wherein each participant adds a little bitcoin to a payment, then passes it onto someone on Twitter that they trust – in order to spread awareness of the technology, widely seen as the future of bitcoin payments since payments are fast and scalable.
With Dorsey’s participation, the payment has now reached roughly 2,860,000 satoshis (worth nearly $100 at the time of press). To date, roughly 150 people have taken part in what has become a global exercise.
Crypto podcast host Matt Odell was the one nudging Dorsey to participate, tweeting: “You ready to carry the torch? Send me an invoice for 2,860,000 sats.”
Perhaps a bit unexpectedly, Dorsey responded on Twitter the next day, posting an invoice – similar to a regular invoice in that it’s used to request and retrieve a certain amount of funds. Odell then sent the necessary funds to Dorsey, before Dorsey tweeted simply:
“Cool example of #BitcoinTwitter experimenting on the lightning network.”
Dorsey didn’t have the torch for long. He quickly sent it on to Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, as the point of the game is to keep passing it along
Dorsey is also CEO of Square, a payment app. Dorsey is an investor in Lightning Labs and has said positive things about the technology in the past. After his initial tweet Tuesday, Dorsey responded to a user saying that he holds bitcoin but no other cryptocurrency.
“Bitcoin is resilient. Bitcoin is principled. Bitcoin is native to internet ideals. And it’s a great brand,” he went on to write.
Speaking at CoinDesk’s annual Consensus conference last year, he said he hopes that bitcoin will become the internet’s “native currency.”
Jack Dorsey image via CoinDesk