German Bitcoin enthusiast has created an electric bike that runs on Lightning Network technology

The developer of the Lightning Network from Berlin, Matias Steinig, has developed a system that allows electric bikes to be brought into operation with the help of micro-payment technology Lightning Network.

The solution is at the stage of a proof-of concept, but already fully functional, including the payment system. In potential, it may be useful for companies engaged in the rental of urban electric jets.

Matthias Steinig noted that while he is sharing only the program code, the description of the installation will be posted later.

The programm code for the lightning-bike is online: https://t.co/8sUn1ca1Xu

For now only the code will be available … https://t.co/uGd1XT2MoG

– Matthias Steinig ⚡ (@leblitzdick) 17 October 2018

As stated in the project description on GitHub, on a special display, you can select the desired travel time, scan the QR code and make a payment through the mobile application. After successful payment, the bike is activated and available for travel. The payment device itself is powered by a bicycle battery.

At the moment, there are three different options for the duration of the trip, and the cost of one minute ride is set at 250 Satoshi.

At the heart of the system lies the Raspberry Pi Zero WH, which controls the connection to the mobile network and the power management. As a monitor, an e-paper display was used, the choice of which, according to Matthias, was due to the fact that it consumes an extremely small amount of energy and also has a good picture quality in sunny weather.

On the server side, Raspberry Pi 3 was used, which controls the Lightning node based on c-lightning. This implementation differs from the original one just now, it does not imply the installation of a complete Bitcoin node. For this purpose, the pseudonode sPRUNED was used, which requires only 300 MB of blockchain.

Earlier, Brazilian crypto enthusiast Ricardo Reis reported on the creation of a trading device that accepts Bitcoin payments Bitcoin payments using the Lightning Network.

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