Key facts:
- Lightning Address allows you to use human-readable addresses instead of alphanumeric codes.
- Users send 21 sats to Saylor, for the 21 million bitcoins that will exist one day.
An American billionaire receives tips from thousands of people, in bitcoin (BTC) and using his email. It seems like the beginning of a fictional story, but it is exactly what is happening with Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, the company with the largest Bitcoin holding in the world.
It happens that, according to what he said on social networks, Saylor converted his corporate email address into a Bitcoin Lightning network address. This way, through the use of Lightning Address or lnurl technology, he can use a human-readable address to receive transactions over that network, instead of a long alphanumeric code.
Many users took the opportunity to connect with Michael Saylor, one of the most identified Bitcoin entrepreneurs in the world. To that end, “they do not stop sending” 21 satoshis (sats, minimum unit of bitcoin). The number is tiny in terms of its value (less than a cent on the dollar), but it represents the 21 million bitcoins that the protocol establishes will come into existence.
This move demonstrates MicroStrategy’s continued confidence in Bitcoin as a form of investment and transaction. Actually, this is something that has already been proven in the past through several actions that were able to report in Market Times. Since March 2021, MicroStrategy has accumulated 140,000 BTC, investing more than $4 billion in the leading cryptocurrency.
With the cryptocurrency in a bull market since February, this bitcoin investment strategy has boosted MicroStrategy’s share price, which is up 173% year-to-date.
Lightning Address, the development that Michael Saylor took advantage of
Lightning Address is a feature of the Bitcoin Lightning Network that allows users to send and receive bitcoins using Internet identifiers. For example, email addresses can be used, instead of the traditional long and complicated Bitcoin addresses.
This feature makes Bitcoin transactions more convenient and easy to use. Additionally, it has the potential to drive enterprise adoption by allowing businesses to embed this feature into their corporate email addresses, making it easier to use Bitcoin in business and financial transactions. Lightning network capacity has grown almost uninterrupted since its inception. Source: mempool.space.
Adoption of the Lightning Network has been on the rise in recent years, with a total of 5,501 BTC (approximately $166 million) locked in the payment network, according to data from mempool.space.
