Lightning Network is being used to receive payments for Africa Bitcoin Conference

Bitnob’s Lightning-powered ticketing service will be used for the upcoming inaugural Africa Bitcoin Conference (ABC), which will happen from Dec. 5 to Dec. 7 in Accra, Ghana.

ABC will bring stakeholders from Africa and beyond together to discuss blockchain adoption on the continent. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey is one of the event speakers.

The details

• Bitnob is an African startup building Bitcoin-based financial products.
• The company initially launched its ticketing service in August, providing event organizers a way to serve entities that prefer to pay with cryptocurrency.
• Bitnob’s products primarily use the Lightning Network to settle transactions.

Zoom out

• The portability of the Lightning Network makes it a potential candidate for enabling micropayments in the event industry — especially as more events switch to a hybrid model.
• Beyond merely using crypto as a means of payment, though, the events space could use the help of other blockchain-based products.
• For instance, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been touted to have the ability to solve some of the event industry’s longstanding problems, including fake tickets, scalping, scams, etc.
• For instance, an NFT can help event organizers track every ticket from the point of sale until the event to prevent malicious activity.
• Nigerian blockchain company Blocverse currently offers an NFT-based ticketing product via its TixHive platform.