Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Merits 3 from 2 users
Re: [self-moderated] Is LN Bitcoin? franky1: About scaling, on-chain and off-chain
by
suchmoon
on 14/01/2022, 17:10:20 UTC
⭐ Merited by DaveF (2) ,JayJuanGee (1)
Not from a merchant's POV. There is more hassle involved in receiving LN payments for no tangible benefit.
Isn't your customers' satisfaction a tangible benefit? Whenever I see Bitcoin as a payment method, but without Lightning, I'm a little more discouraged to do the transaction. For instance, I don't want to broadcast another transaction every month for the $10 of Spotify.

Also, if I had made all those transactions on-chain the merchant would have a ton of UTXOs. I've saved them money in fees.

What percentage of online purchases are paid for with Bitcoin? What percentage of those are paid for with LN? At merchants who have both those options along with fiat payments.

As much as some customers might be satisfied paying with exotic payment methods, there is a threshold were such options are too costly and cumbersome for the sales (and satisfaction) it could possibly bring in. Most businesses would happily pay the extra 20 cents per UTXO or whatever it is, if they can avoid  maintaining yet another service and dealing with all the other crud - imagine training customer service reps on troubleshooting LN payments. They might be enticed to utilize LN payments if it's offered as a custodial hands-off solution so there's probably a business opportunity for someone here.