Lightning Network Flash Crashes New Tippin.me Bitcoin Tip Chrome Extension for Twitter

The Tippin extension for Google Chrome was released a few days ago and it allows users to send tips through the Lightning Network (LN) on Twitter. This offered an easy way for users to start using the LN and how it works.

The new Tippin.me extension was a simple button embedded in Twitter that allowed the Bitcoin (BTC) community to be excited about the possible use cases of the LN. Indeed, even Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, has shared his support for this initiative.

Jack Dorsey decided to demonstrate how to use the new application but the feature crashed shortly after due to overloaded servers. Dorsey received 12,362 satoshis, close to $0.5 at that time. The information regarding the crash of this app was released by Crypto Briefing on February 21.

I hooked this up and already got tipped some satoshis https://t.co/zvwdkZTN1Q

— jack 🌍🌏🌎 (@jack) February 20, 2019

This is not the first time that there are interested users trying to use tip bots in the crypto space. The XRP developer Wietse Wind created the XRP TIpBot that allows users to send and receive cryptocurrency donations.

Tipping services are very useful for integrating virtual currencies on the internet. According to Mati Greenspan, eToro Senior Analyst, these services have started in China and now are moving to the West.

About it, Greenspan commented:

“Tipping content creators is arguably one of the most mainstream sue cases for internet money, the custom has been alive and thriving in China for more than a decade already. The only difference is that in the East, it’s more of a closed ecosystem that was set up by Tencent, and I’m thrilled to see that as it catches on in the West, people are integrating with some of the top cryptos.”

At the moment, there is some criticism towards Tippin. People believe that if Tippin.me gets hacked, the funds can be lost due to the fact that they have a centralized wallet controlling the funds that users receive and send.

Biggest thing on Twitter: tip ₿ via⚡ https://t.co/otEKZhqsMw

— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) February 20, 2019

One of the most interesting things about Tippin is that it was received very positively by the community. Sergio Abril, the founder of the project, mentioned that he was overwhelmed when Dorsey signed up to the platform. He explained that the services will be enhanced as time passes.

The Lightning Network is one of the scaling solutions for Bitcoin that would allow it to scale and process thousands of transactions per second (TPS) when now it is able to process just 7 TPS. During 2018, the LN has been growing and continues to do so as time passes.

Currently, the LN has 6,521 nodes, 29,658 channels and network capacity of 715 BTC.