Ask Ada: What’s the Best Way to Pay for TLC with Bitcoin?
"I've used Bitcoin to pay for TLC before but I found it really slow. Do you have any tips for making this quicker and easier?"
Paying for things with Bitcoin isn’t always straightforward.
Luckily, there’s a new approach that helps make things easier and faster, called the Lightning Network. Here’s a quick explanation of how it works and why it’s useful.
Paying with Bitcoin is often more difficult than it needs to be, especially with how damn long it takes for a payment to come through. Even if you pay a high fee to ensure the payment is processed quickly, there’s regularly a 30-minute wait, at best. In some cases, it can even take many hours! In 2015, a bunch of nerds realised this wasn’t going to help the adoption of cryptocurrency as a payment method, so they got together and developed what's called the Lightning Network.
The Lightning Network is an additional layer on top of the existing Bitcoin blockchain that can approve payments almost instantly, with significantly lower fees.
How does it work? I'll let the Lightning Network creators explain it themselves:
“Funds are placed into a two-party, multi-signature ‘channel’ bitcoin address. This channel is represented as an entry on the bitcoin public ledger. In order to spend funds from the channel, both parties must agree on the new balance. The current balance is stored as the most recent transaction signed by both parties, spending from the channel address. To make a payment, both parties sign a new exit transaction spending from the channel address. All old exit transactions are invalidated by doing so.”
Did you get that? Nah, I didn't either, but it works! The main takeaway here is that the Lightning Network makes sending Bitcoin faster and cheaper. It’s still the same old Bitcoin you obtain however it is you obtain it, but when you transfer it using the Lightning Network instead of the regular old blockchain, it gets to its destination sooner and for a lower fee.
The good news is that your favourite website, Tryst.link, now supports Lightning Network transactions for purchasing TLC! No longer do you have to play the waiting game, hoping and praying that your funds have made their way to Tryst.link. With Lightning, you get instant confirmation and the TLC is added to your account within just a few moments.
The catch is that not every Bitcoin wallet supports it
And it's not always obvious when they do. If you’re using an unsupported wallet app, you might think you're sending Bitcoin via the Lightning Network and expect the funds to be accepted instantly, but the transfer silently falls back to the regular Bitcoin network, taking way longer and potentially costing you higher fees. So it’s important to confirm that your wallet app supports Lightning.
Here's a list of some Bitcoin wallet smartphone apps that other Tryst.link customers use to purchase TLC, that not only support Lightning Network transfers but also let you know whether a transfer will use the Lightning Network before you send it.
In practice, using the Lightning Network to send Bitcoin is the same as any other Bitcoin transaction. Simply add some Bitcoin to your wallet, scan a QR code with your smartphone, double-check the amount you’re sending is correct, and press ‘send’. The Tryst Knowledge Base has instructions on how to purchase TLC with Bitcoin using the Lightning network. If you've been considering using Bitcoin for TLC payments, now is a great time to give it a go.
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