{"id":19481,"date":"2019-08-27T21:36:41","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T21:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7b40072697"},"modified":"2019-08-27T21:36:41","modified_gmt":"2019-08-27T21:36:41","slug":"radar-continuing-push-into-bitcoin-unveils-lightning-app-store","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/radar-continuing-push-into-bitcoin-unveils-lightning-app-store","title":{"rendered":"RADAR, Continuing Push Into Bitcoin, Unveils Lightning App Store"},"content":{"rendered":"
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RADAR<\/a>, a cryptocurrency company known for its RELAY<\/a> wallet-to-wallet ERC20 token trading, is now building tools for Bitcoin\u2019s Lightning Network.<\/p>\n

The Homepage of the Lightning Network<\/h2>\n

Founded in 2017, RADAR\u2019s primary focus has been on Ethereum, but in 2019, the somewhat-under-the-radar company came out of the woodwork with its latest product suite, ION<\/a>. Branded as the \u201chomepage of the Lightning Network,\u201d ION acts as a central access point to practically anything Lightning. This newcomer to the Bitcoin space is expanding its offerings with a newly launched Lightning app (LApp) store<\/a>, which aggregates popular Lightning wallets, services and other applications for users on RADAR ION\u2019s website. Featured applications currently include Fold\u2019s Lightning Pizza, Bitrefill\u2019s Thor services and the Y\u2019alls blogging platform.<\/p>\n

Branching out from Ethereum to Bitcoin, ION is RADAR\u2019s second product. Its inspiration, according to Beatrice Leung, the company\u2019s product lead, came from researching the \u201cpain points\u201d of Lightning\u2019s distributed model. The idea was to create a hub for all of the Lightning Network\u2019s working parts and provide a primary point for users to access all of these services, software and applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe launched ION in January [2019] with basic onboarding guides and limited developer tools,\u201d Leung said. \u201cImmediately, our users started requesting help getting connected to Lightning applications and Lightning applications requesting to be added to our guides.\u201d<\/p>\n

Its repository features guides and download links to popular self-custody wallets like Zap<\/a>, Breeze<\/a>, Lightning<\/a>, Eclair<\/a> and custodial wallets like BlueWallet<\/a> and Wallet of Satoshi. It also includes links to Twitter\u2019s Tippin.me<\/a> extension and Pierre Rochard\u2019s<\/a> Lighting node launcher<\/a>. There\u2019s a step-by-step guide for connecting to ION\u2019s Lightning node for payment routing, links to community resources (Like Reddit, Slack, a Lightning developer mailing list, etc.) and an entire page devoted to developer tools.<\/p>\n

Leveraging LApps<\/h2>\n

The fresh-out-of-the-box app store is the latest installment in ION\u2019s one-stop suite of Lightning services. When using ION\u2019s LApp portal, users can leverage a connection to ION\u2019s Lightning node to route payments to any application listed on the store. As Leung put it, \u201c[t]his decreases the hassle of managing multiple channels and save[s] time and on-chain transaction fees.\u201d The service is not custodial and doesn\u2019t levy any additional fees from the user.<\/p>\n

Leung told us that RADAR had in mind the user interfaces of \u201cthe app stores we\u2019re familiar with on our computers and phones\u201d when designing its own, aiming to make it \u201csimple, intuitive, and well-curated.\u201d <\/p>\n

From it, users can access Bitrefill\u2019s Lightning-powered gift card exchange, receive sats back on Lightning purchases on Fold and blog through Y\u2019alls. There are also portals to Microlancer, a Lightning-powered gig economy app; a few Lightning gambling sites and Satoshi\u2019s Games<\/a>; a temporary phone number generator for receiving SMS messages<\/a> (one text costs 500 sats); a Lightning paywall generator; and a data feed API, which offers stats-for-sats on data involving the crypto market and, interestingly, the National Football League and National Basketball Association.<\/p>\n

There are more novel LApps still, namely the Block Clock, a real-life display board whose message users can change by sending a Lightning payment, and Pollo Feed, a long-standing application that lets you send Lightning payments to feed a coop of chickens (which, if poultry voyeurism is your vice, you can then watch eat on the LApp\u2019s live feed of the coop).<\/p>\n

Currently featuring 17 LApps, ION is open to applications for additions to its store\u2019s lineup, the team told Bitcoin Magazine<\/em>, adding that each LApp\u2019s developers are verified and the LApps themselves tested before they are featured on the store. Before listing a LApp, ION opens a payment channel with its provider to make connecting to these applications easier for users.<\/p>\n

While the company says that it isn\u2019t quite pivoting away from Ethereum, it does see the Lightning Network as \u201ca promising frontier\u201d for future exploration and development. ION, which launched in 2019, has piggybacked on the growth that the Lightning Network has enjoyed<\/a>. For its part, it will continue to build tools like its app store in a bid to drive users to the network.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lightning Network has doubled in size in 2019, and we\u2019ve seen tremendous growth firsthand with ION,\u201d Leung concluded. \u201cWe\u2019ve hosted multiple hackathons and events, and continue to see usership increase across all our tooling. The recent launch of the app store is merely the beginning; expect additional features and products from the ION team this year that will continue to foster network adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ethereum-focused company RADAR has turned to Bitcoin with the launch of its Lightning app store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2566,"featured_media":19482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[138,209,2220,3228,130,460],"class_list":{"0":"post-19481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture","8":"tag-bitrefill","9":"tag-fold","10":"tag-ion","11":"tag-lapps","12":"tag-lightning","13":"tag-lightning-network"},"author_data":{"id":2566,"name":"Colin Harper","nicename":"colin-harper","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/MjEwMTYzMzc3Njg5ODYzNjQ2-96x96.webp"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/radar-ion.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}