Sergej Kotliar From Bitrefill on Using Lightning in Retail

Interview location: Skype
Interview date: Wednesday 10th April, 2019
Company: Bitrefill
Role: Founder & CEO

The Lightning Network offers to solve a problem for Bitcoin with retailers. While Bitcoin was originally seen as online money, a way of improving digital commerce, the slow confirmation times and high fees led to many retailers abandoning it as a payment method.

While some Bitcoiners challenge the online commerce narrative, promoting Bitcoin as a store of value, there are people want to spend Bitcoin, and there are retailers want to accept it.

Bitrefill changed the game with Bitcoin and ecommerce by allowing for purchases with 0 confirmations, but this is not the solution for everyone. Lightning is a potential solution for retailers but does come with its challenges, from UX to channel capacity.

Bitrefill is leading the way in building support for Lightning in retail, both by accepting Lightning payments but also with their Thor product, selling channel capacity on the network. In this interview I chat with their founder and CEO, Sergej Kotliar, we discuss the challenges with Lightning, custodial v non-custodial wallets and UX.

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Helpful Links:

Connect with Sergej:
- On Twitter @ziggamon
- On Medium
- On LinkedIn
- On GitHub
- On Crunchbase
- On AngelList
- At Bitrefill
- Thor Product

Bitrefill Lightning Posts:
- The Bitrefill Team Can’t Stop Talking About the Lightning Network
- Would you like a Lightning channel with that?
- Announcing: real money Lightning payments

Other relevant WBD podcasts:
- WBD094: Nic Carter & Pierre Rochard on the Economics of The Lightning Network
- WBD093: Jack Mallers on Lightning Design and UX
- WBD092: Christian Decker - An Introduction to The Lightning Network
- WBD074: Matt Corallo on How Bitcoin Works
- WBD068: Peter Todd on the Essence of Bitcoin
- WBD064: Defending Bitcoin with John Carvalho
- WBD018: Bitcoin Scaling and Lightning Network with Jameson Lopp
- WBD017: Why Small Blocks are Important for Bitcoin with Samson Mow

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