Yep, I am sure that this will be the turning point for "blockchain" and "cryptocurrency" and "machine learning" and "artificial intelligence" and "self-driving cars." /s
Is the time for a transaction actually fast enough for it to be useful, I've not paid attention to it for a while.
This is good for Bitcoin
I think it's far more likely that this is irrelevant for Bitcoin.
The problem is that merchants don't directly pass the transaction costs onto users. If I spend bitcoin, I pay a small fee (a few cents). If I spend with a credit card, I get 1% cash back and pay no fee. Why would I pay with Bitcoin?
> If I spend bitcoin, I pay a small fee (a few cents).
Worse than that, actually. Bitcoin transaction fees can be pretty volatile, but they're currently in the $0.20-0.30 range.
With lightning network, the fee could be less than 1 cent.
A coworker and I were just playing with this, and were able to send the ~$100 worth of BTC back and forth, and paid $0.00002 in fees (and no, we weren't directly connected). The actual send took less than a second.
You mean people will actually start using it to buy things rather than using it merely as a vehicle for speculation?