Earlier today, Coin Center hosted a briefing in Congress in conjunction with the Congressional Blockchain Caucus. We covered the basics of cryptocurrency, why it’s exciting, and went through some the policy issues the technology raises, including questions of scaling, privacy, consumer protection, and tax.
One of the things made uniquely possible by cryptocurrency is microtransactions–tiny transactions without a middleman. To visualize this concept, we used a lightning enabled candy dispenser. We were able to show the process of sending tiny amounts of bitcoin from our phones to the vending machine and watch it dispense candy in real time. The network fees were 1 satoshi per transaction.
Real time demonstrations like these are always better than simply describing a process. We are grateful to Swiss developer David Knezić for generously donating the dispenser to Coin Center.
The well-attended briefing was the first of many that the Congressional Blockchain Caucus plans to hold in 2019. We are excited to continue helping them and their colleagues better understand and appreciate this technology.
Congressional staff watches as Coin Center’s @jerrybrito & @valkenburgh demonstrate Bitcoin Lightning Network transactions in Congress for the first time ever pic.twitter.com/hpTTYjvkgf
— Coin Center (@coincenter) January 18, 2019
Here are the slides from our presentation: