If you want to buy things on Amazon using Bitcoin, you now can. All you need is the Bitcoin lightning network and crypto payment processing startup Moon.
In time, the service will extend to many e-commerce sites also, not just Amazon. Let’s check this out.
Moon Payment Processing
The startup announced today that any lightning-enabled wallet can now be used through Moon’s browser extension.
Before this, the service could be used by connecting the browser extension to exchange accounts like Coinbase.
According to Moon CEO Ken Kruger, it works like this:
“[The extension] will pop up a QR code and it will have the lightning invoice, which you could also copy and paste if you can’t use the QR code for some reason, and you’ll be able to pay with your favorite lightning wallet.”
Moon Payment and Amazon
Customers should note that Amazon has nothing to do with the Bitcoin payment. The conversion from Bitcoin to fiat currency is taken care of behind the scenes by an unspecified third party.
Therefore, Amazon merchants receive fiat currency and never have to deal with Bitcoin, but the user gets to use Bitcoin as he/she so wishes. Kruger maintains that the lightning-enabled feature should work on almost any e-commerce site by 2020 as “there’s no direct merchant integration.”
This is also regardless of whether that platform accepts Bitcoin directly.
Aside from Bitcoin, Moon also manages payment channels, offering an interface for sending payments. As Kruger furthered:
“We’re integrating with the Visa and Mastercard networks and we get a cut of the interchange fees that merchants pay every time they receive a credit card transaction.”
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Moon Payment Processing Start-Up
Founded in New York last year, Moon is looking very promising. Born of a $100,000 investment, the company has already come quite far and is now looking for a Series A funding round in 2019.
Further, the company is looking for “opportunities to help solve some of those usability problems” and to “engage with other folks in the lightning community to see what people are doing, what they’re working on and if there are any significant gaps. We’d love to step in and help whenever possible.”
What do you think? Would you use Moon to buy your wares on Amazon?
Featured Image: DepositPhotos © belchonock
