You always wanted to pay for your coffee with Bitcoin but it took too long? Well, soon you will be able to - thanks to Lighning Network and the Eclair wallet that the test versions was just released!
A company named ACINQ just released their test version of an Android Bitcoin wallet named Eclair. The main feature of the wallet is the support of Lightning Network - additional layer build on Bitcoin protocol designed to allow super fast payments - with seconds or less!
Currently the wallet operates on the Bitcoin testnet, where SegWit and Lighting Network are already operational. Don't worry though - soon we should have SegWit on Bitcoin main protocol too - click here for more info.
The wallet is also compatible with non-segwit transactions, according to the developers:
When designing this wallet we wanted to make the experience as pain-free and transparent as possible. That’s why the LN functionality is opt-in, meaning that by default the wallet behaves like a regular spv on-chain wallet. All on-chain transactions sent by this wallet are segwit transactions, thus benefitting from a fee discount compared to legacy transactions. Of course, because segwit is fully backward compatible, our wallet can send/receive transactions to/from all bitcoin wallets, even non-segwit ones.
Please note that some developers state that Lightning Network is not the answer for super fast Bitcoin transactions and that is not well scalable for mass adoption - click here for more info..
The cool part is that we can find out by ourselves by downloading the wallet and helping with testing phase. The authors created a special website where you can buy your first test coffee with Bitcoin using Lightning Network - it's called Starblocks ;)
Well, looks that the greatly needed update to Bitcoin is just around the corner.
Link to the Wallet application: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclair.wallet
source: https://medium.com/@ACINQ/announcing-eclair-wallet-a8d8c136fc7e