Hacker News Reader

Comment by ibz | Hacker News Reader

The whole Podcasting 2.0 / "value 4 value" movement is built on top of Lightning Network micropayments. It works. People use it. When you listen to a podcast that has the v4v tags in the feed using a compatible app you are given the option to send contribution based on how much you have listened. Also, you can send "boosts" which include a message that the podcaster could, for example, read out live.

I think the next step would be something similar but for blogging / text content.

PS: I myself wrote a RSS reader & podcast client that I released on the Umbrel app store. As you listen to podcasts, you can stream donations straight from the app running on your Umbrel node using funds you have complete custody of. It is pretty amazing.

PPS: In the Lightning world, micropayments can be as low as a millisat, which is 1/1000 of a satoshi. Routing fees are also very low and transactions are instantly confirmed.

View on HN

There's also a lot of work happening in the gaming space for economies and rewards in virtual worlds. Zebedee is one, but there are others.

Bitcoin with Lightning finally makes micro/nano-payments practical and it's going to flip the Internet economy on its head.

Mod parent up! I don't understand why these comments are being flagged. Too much white-knights in HN in opposition to open innovation.

I sometimes also wonder why are HNers so anti-Bitcoin, which - politics aside - is one of the major innovations built on top of the Internet.

I think it's because the tech has been adopted as the disguise-du-jour of scammers and charlatans. Once the public understands better and the hype goes away then maybe we will actually be able to have some applications built that utilize the actual advantages of blockchain without dealing with the mental overhead of worrying that it's more than likely a scam.

It's very fashionable to dislike cryptocurrencies of any kind, which includes bitcoin. This is the most cogent explanation, as most discussion about it is rehashing the same few problems. Even if those problems have solutions or are not actually problems, nobody is convinced. That is why I'm convinced it's primarily emotional.

Why is this downvoted? I'm atm streaming Coder Radio (using Castamatic), and streaming 40 sats/min back. I can send a boostagram with any amount to give feedback + value. It works and it works well. I really hope this will mean an ad-free feed at some point (so I hope this becomes popular).

To me this is the first and best example as of yet where I feel that a cryptocurrency/blockchain is delivering real value (for value). And indeed, I like it.

This is cool and I’m a fan, but I don’t see how Lightning can be in good standing with the US when it explicitly ignores the Bank Secrecy Act.

There’s no one doing OFAC screening or compliance checks on these transactions, so of course it’s going to be cheap.

I would expect headwinds preventing this from going mainstream.

If you are in US what are you going to do at tax time ? Each of those payments are a taxable event for you the payer. What a nightmare. No thank you.

OP asks about micropayments, your remake is not specific to btc lightning payments. So I guess this is something to solve (soon) on the government level.

It is not. This is "value 4 value": you donate money to a podcaster you like. Is tipping a street musician also a taxable event?

Why wouldn't tipping a busker be a taxable event? http://keepstreetslive.com/faqs#:~:text=Yes.,tax%2C%20just%2.... UK example

> for you the payer

This website is not applicable in this case.

Your link just says that the busker has to declare the income and pay tax, not that I need to pay some form of tax for tipping the busker.

As far as I understand, if you tip a street musician using Bitcoin, it's also a taxable event in the USA: you have to pay capital gains taxes on the difference between the price you paid for that amount of Bitcoin, and the market price that Bitcoin has now. My understanding is that it's as if, on every Bitcoin transaction, you virtually converted it to dollars and back; that is, from a tax perspective, it's as if you had converted the Bitcoin into cash, tipped the street musician using that cash, and the street musician converted that cash back into Bitcoin, all in a single atomic transaction.

Mod parent up! I don't understand why these comments are being flagged. Too much white-knights in HN in opposition to open innovation.

Maybe we can use Terra UST now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com