One technological concept, that has marked this generation and shows signs, of not stopping has been “disruptive technology”.
On a daily basis, when we thought that, we have seen it all and nothing can beat the fancy of the new technological invention that we are currently using, another technological innovation, will just crop up and disrupt the invention, offering a more flexible version.
Technology is a process. A process that has no end.
It keeps evolving, at an exponential rate, with respect to nothing, trumping everything in its path. Disruption arises, due to human insatiable needs, to keep finding a better way, to improve anything and everything.
One technological invention that is set to disrupt and rival WhatsApp and Facebook is, Whatsat.
Whatsat is, a peer – to – peer, instant messaging design that has been created, to enhance the Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.
It will facilitate, watertight and encrypted messages, to be sent, without the use of a third party, like Facebook, or, WhatsApp.
Whatsat, derived its name, from the amalgamation of WhatsApp and Satoshi, (the smallest unit of value for Bitcoin).
“This started, as a small project and I arranged the codes, as a way, to use Bitcoin’s micropayment network, to talk to an old high school friend, who did not trust WhatsApp”, explained Joost Jager, current Lighting Labs engineer and Whatsat creator.
Whatsat is a program, based on the Lightning Network, which is one of the ways, through which Bitcoin may be able, to scale and reach out, to millions of users.
Some days back, Jager showed off a new demo that supports the idea, with messages costing little fees to be sent around.
The demo showed that it would cost an average user, around $0.66 to send around 20,000 messages.
Users can, also, leverage this solution, through the “second layer” and make bitcoin transactions, at a much cheaper rate.
“The idea of instant messaging, over Lightning, does seem to resonate and many people acknowledge the potentials of it”, Jager explained further.
To send messages, the current implementation uses what is known as, “Free Failures”, as a mode of communication, between two lighting nodes.
In the future, it has been projected that charges will apply, each time this service is used and limits, will be put on the number of messages to send.
As promising as the solution appears, there is still, a whole lot of problems, with the Whatsat, but its potentials and applications, are massive if, effectively, harnessed.
There is, also, the problem of nodes that do not support messages to be passed around, at a low cost.
All in all, the Whatsat project looks exciting.
Featured Image: bitcoinlightning
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