Alex Crognale is officially the first ever professional soccer player to receive a Bitcoin Lightning payroll payment. The American soccer player, who holds the position of defender for Birmingham Legion is one of the only two people to have received the Bitwage’s first salary powered by the Bitcoin Lightning network.
Bernard Parah, CEO of the Nigerian Bitcoin Company, and the second recipient of the payroll tweeted saying;
“Getting a taste of what the future looks like. Congrats to everyone who put in work to make this happen.”
What Does Bitwage Do?
Based in San Fransico, Carlifornia; Bitwage a company that creates solutions for remote workers to get their payments, has successfully managed to process the first Lightning payroll worldwide. However, besides its branch in the US, the firm has other arms in Asia, LatinAmerica and Europe.
What Is a Lightning Payroll
A Lightning payroll is the outcome of the Bitcoin layer 2 scaling solution, popularly referred to as Lightning Network. This network that aims at providing faster and cheaper Bitcoin payments. The Lightning Network makes Bitcoin among the most efficient payment methods globally. To emphasize this purpose, Bitwage told the Bitcoin magazine that, “Bitcoin’s Lightning Network promises the ability to enable global, instant payments for almost no fees.”
Leveraging this, Bitwage went ahead to explain that its “…vision for Lightning payroll is one where any user can add the wallet of their choice, get paid their salary, and immediately spend it through any merchant connected to the main network.” “The concept of Lightning payroll means I can get paid by the hour or even by the minute.” Time means money, this is it,” stated Parah.
To achieve this great feat, Bitwage also teamed-up with ACINQ. This is a French startup whose aim is to create Bitcoin-native products and services. Furthermore, it’s the company that has aided Parah in securing enough inbound liquidity.
To facilitate the process, ACINQ capitalized on its large Lightning node. This also made sure the transaction was processed correctly.
Pierre-Marie Padiou, CEO of ACINQ also explained that “As the network matures and its capacity increases, it becomes suitable for larger and larger transaction amounts, as Bitwage has demonstrated by paying a salary over Lightning,”
Besides ACINQ, other companies have also received praise from Parah’s tweet. These include Voltage Cloud, a company that offers infrastructure for Bitcoin at an enterprise-grade standard.
Wallet of Satoshi
There was also the Wallet of Satoshi, a mobile app that allows users to send and receive Lightning payments. The app is available for both Android and iOS.
In addition to explaining where you can get the app, CEO Daniel Alexiuc said “Being paid in bitcoin brings the benefits of sound money to everybody in the world, and we’re looking forward to many more people using this fast, convenient, and low-cost method of payroll.”