My buddy Nico (@r0ckstardev) recently joined Zap Lightning Wallet as a full-time developer. He has been telling me they were working on something big, but was cagey with the details. Now we learn what they have been up to: Olympus, a bitcoin/fiat on- and off-ramp service over the lightning network. Olympus allows users to buy bitcoin with a credit or debit card and receive it for use in their lightning wallet in a matter of seconds.
This is a major improvement in the lightning network’s user experience, something I’ve been critical of in the past. Heretofore, to onboard a new user to the lightning network went something like this:
take fiat, buy bitcoin, wait until you’re allowed to withdraw, withdraw and wait for confirmations, deposit bitcoin onto the Lightning Network, open channels, wait for more confirmations, scan QR code.
Sometimes, after purchasing bitcoin, the wait to withdrawal from an exchange (such as Coinbase) is a week! If you’re already a bitcoiner and send coin to a lightning wallet, it still takes three confirmations (~30 minutes) for it to be spendable on the LN. That’s not too terrible, but not great either, especially if your lightning wallet is short on funds and you want to pay a LN invoice immediately. If you’re a new user, who wants to go from no bitcoin to using the lightning network, forget about it! The experience is so cumbersome it leaves most noobs rolling their eyes.
No more! (Well, this will be released in about a month)
Now with Olympus, a user simply downloads the wallet, enters a minimal amount of KYC info (name, email, and credit/debit card details), buys bitcoin, and has it available to spend in seconds. If you already have it downloaded and previously entered your buying details, simply click a button, enter how much to buy, two more button clicks and BAM funds in your wallet. This is dope.
Yes, the best use case for Bitcoin right now is simply hodling it to store your wealth and hedge systemic risk. However, if we want to build a future of the Bitcoin Standard, an economic system based on sound money, we need the infrastructure and a seamless user experience for the masses. While that glorious future is still a ways off, Olympus is a harbinger of things to come and we’re fortunate to already have this tool available, especially should we need it in the face of a Black Swan event.
Kudos to Jack Mallers, @r0ckstardev, and the Zap team! Huge thank you for this amazing service, thanks for beating the centralized, close-source companies to the punch, thanks for opening the service up for integration in other lightning wallets, and thanks your efforts for minimal KYC.