The two Twitter and Sub stack have recently integrated bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network in their internal functionality through partnerships with third parties.
The integration took place using the Strike and OpenNode APIs, which could be easily replicated on other major platforms.
To date, these are the only two major online platforms to offer this service.
Benefits of the Lightning Network
This is probably a competitive choice, made to gain an advantage over the competition because of the peculiarities of the Lightning Network.
LN allows immediate payments with very low costs, saving a lot of money because traditional gateways keep much higher percentage, and also offer very good privacy protection.
BTC transactions on LN are not recorded on Bitcoin’s public blockchain, so they are not visible to anyone other than the people who make them and the LN nodes through which they pass.
Some well-known advocates of full privacy for citizens’ payments, such as Edward snowden, have expressed support for such initiatives, including El Salvador’s decision to make Bitcoin legal tender.
Bitcoin support is likely a competitive choice for Twitter and Substack
Twitter and Substack support Bitcoin
Dons via Twitter ou Substack can therefore be anonymous, or almost anonymous, which could be particularly useful for those who want to give money to someone without being known.
LN should only be used for small transactions, while for larger payments it is better rely on the recording of the transaction on the public blockchain, but it is not excluded that the total volume of donations via LN may become so large.
Such a characteristic, absent from competing platforms, could help Twitter and Substack to offer something to their users more than others, and thus encourage their use.
In the case of Twitter, in order to receive BTC donations, a Strike account must be used, which requires KYC. It means that the sender of the donation can remain anonymous, because a KYC account is not required, while the recipient must be known.
Nowadays, Strike only accepts users from the United States and El Salvador, by verifying their identity.
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