Bitcoiner has a microchip implanted

Not to imitate: A man has successfully implanted a microchip and used it to make Lightning payments. The Bitcoiner has his experiment on YouTube documented. Speaking to news outlet Cointelegraph stressed the Swiss, nicknamed F418, however: “The purpose is just to show that it’s possible and you can do things like that.” The implant, the size of a grain of rice, enables Bitcoin transactions without using a smartphone. If the subject holds their hand to a transaction device, a Lightning payment is activated.

How does the experiment work?

The experiment combines the Lightning network with NFC technology. Data transmission via NFC is now an integral part of our everyday lives. For example, if we hold our credit cards, mobile phones or watches to the reader in the supermarket to pay, then NFC (Near Field Communication) is used. This is a radio transmission that only works over a distance of a few centimetres. Such NFC chips are installed in the smartphones that we can use to pay at the checkout.

However, you can also program these yourself. All you need to write to these “NFC tags” is a smartphone with the appropriate NFC interface. NFC tags are available, for example, in the form of a credit card, sticker or transponder. However, the technology is also used for implants.

Connect Lightning and NFC

After said “F418” (a pseudonym, which incidentally goes back to the hash of the first Bitcoin transaction) had the implant with the NFC chip placed in his left hand, he linked it to the Lightning network.

All you have to do is set up a Lightning wallet and fill it with a few sats. You then have to activate the “LNURL-withdraw” sub-protocol. To put it simply, you can use this function to issue a kind of direct debit authorization. This has a code (LNURLw), which is then written onto the implant with an NFC-enabled smartphone. Once the chip has been written on, it can be successfully used for contactless payments via Lightning. In the video, the payment is triggered when the person’s hand is held to the reader.

However, the experiment is by no means recommended for imitation.

Chip under the skin: Not new technology

What looks like a small revolution in the video is actually nothing new. While the affectionately christened “LightningPaw” (in German: Lightning paw) is probably the first of its kind, there have been self-experiments with NFC implants for several years that fulfill certain functions.

However, since smartphone manufacturers have been installing the chips as standard in their devices, the technology has regained some popularity as the transmitters can now be written to with user-friendly apps.

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In 2017, on the other hand, you were considered a pioneer if you were out and about with a chip in your hand. Just like BTC-ECHO founder and managing director Mark Preuss, who when asked about his motivation for having a chip used, replies: “I wanted to try something new. In particular, the idea of ​​being able to pay at the supermarket checkout at some point without a card or something similar or to be able to save my car keys on it made me decide,” says Preuss. “At the same time, there would now also be the possibility of always having my crypto wallet with me, even ‘in’ me.”

However, whether such an implant will make it into the mainstream is uncertain. Preuss: “Perhaps in the future not everyone will wear a chip under their skin. But the possibility of not having to carry money, keys or other things you tend to lose and having it all stored on a chip the size of a grain of rice may be tempting for some.”

And if he regrets his decision: “I would do it again – it wasn’t half as wild!”