Jack Dorsey’s social media platform Twitter has officially enabled third-party bitcoin tipping services for iOS users, giving them the ability to seamlessly pay one another across the globe, nearly instantly.
As demonstrated by Lightning Network platform Strike in a recent video, Twitter is now one of the world’s most effective platforms for the transmission of value.
“Starting today, Twitter will allow all iOS users around the globe to send tips over the Lightning Network,” Strike CEO Jack Mallers wrote in a blog post. “Twitter’s integration with the Strike API turns Twitter into one of the best remittance experiences in the world, one of the greatest global creator marketplaces in the world, one of the greatest global payment experiences in the world, one of the best global micropayment marketplaces in the world, and allows an internet communications company to interoperate with the monetary standard for the world, enabling global payments for their users.”
In a press call, Twitter also announced that the feature would be coming to Android users soon.
As Mallers indicated, it is difficult to overstate the potential of Lightning Network integration with a widespread internet communications tool. As demonstrated by Bitcoin’s ongoing supplantment of Western Union and Moneygram in El Salvador — which has already seen the permissionless monetary network cut into those third party’s revenue streams by an estimated $400 million per year — the appetite for more efficient global, digital payments systems is huge.
As users begin exchanging value with minimal fees, nearly instantaneously, across borders, without censorship through the Lightning Network on Twitter, how long will it be until more people realize that Bitcoin is the best monetary network for the internet? How long will it be until other digital platforms integrate this money directly into their tools, as Twitter has begun to? How long will it be until Bitcoin replaces the outdated systems that currently dominate remittances, influencer marketing and, eventually, digital payments as a whole?
From a certain perspective, it all seems inevitable.
If Bitcoin’s market capitalization consisted solely of the $700 billion global remittance industry, the $13.8 billion influencer marketing industry and the $5.44 trillion global digital payments market (a combined estimated value of $6.1538 trillion) through applications like Twitter’s tipping service, each bitcoin in existence (18,824,860 at the time of this writing) would be worth approximately $326,897.
As Twitter users are now finding out, Bitcoin is a better tool than the dollar for all of these industries and others. It’s hard to say exactly what the bitcoin price will be as its technology consumes virtually every form of value transaction that we know today, but the number will certainly go up.