CoinCorner launches a contactless BTC card powered by Lightning network and NFC

CoinCorner, a crypto exchange and a web wallet provider, has announced the launch of its Bolt Card. 

The bolt card is a Contactless Bitcoin (BTC) card that is powered by Lightning Network (LN) and near-field communication (NFC).

How Bolt Card works

The Bolt Card will enable users to leverage the power of the Lightning Network, a layer 2 (L2) payment protocol built on Bitcoin that enables cheap and faster transactions, to make direct payments by tapping the card on a sale device presenting Lightning invoice. 

Announcing “The Bolt Card” 🧵

Visa? No
Mastercard? No
Lightning? Yes

The Bolt Card is an offline Lightning contactless card, powered by NFC, #Bitcoin Lightning and LNURL.

A global, open, permissionless, decentralised monetary network. pic.twitter.com/54UneVzG51

— Danny Scott ⚡ (@CoinCornerDanny) May 17, 2022

Danny Scott, the CEO of CoinCorner explained the payment process by saying that after tapping the card on the lightning-enabled point-of-sale (POS) terminal, a request of payment is sent to the user’s CoinCorner account where the British Pound Sterling (GBP) is exchanged to BTC and sent over lightning to the merchant.

However, Scott went ahead to say:

“We’re still early, so as we continue to work on making Lightning an everyday use case, we will explore other concepts around how to make The Bolt Card, and the user experience for all Lightning use cases, better.”

Scott also noted that the card is already compatible with BTCPay and CoinCorner but they are working on adding support to FastBitcoins, LNBits, and Ibex Mercado soon.

Users can pay using the card in all locations that have CoinCorner with Lightning-enabled POS gadgets. 

Currently, there are around 20 stores in the Isle of Man but the exchange is planning to roll out more stores in the UK and other countries.

Covering Android users 

Android users will not be left behind as they can use the card to pay at checkout on the websites that accept Bitcoin and Lightning payment which include online betting platform Rivalry, Davison’s Ice Cream, fudge company Yum Yum Tree Fudge, Cannabidiol (CBD) company Herts Hemp and many more.

It is also important to note that Bolt Card has come days after Sam Bankman-Fred, FTX crypto exchange CEO, said that Bitcoin cannot be an efficient payment method and that he will focus on integrating LN. His comment led to a massive community backlash.

Remember @SBF_FTX saying Bitcoin has no future for payments? 🤔

— Danny Scott ⚡ (@CoinCornerDanny) May 17, 2022

However, some users were still optimistic about the card saying that it can pave way for massive Bitcoin adoption.

One of the users commented via Twitter saying:

“This could very well bring mass adoption. Hard for people to learn a complete diffrent way of doing commerce better adapt Bitcoin to what people are already familiar with.”