Ether on Lightning Is the Latest Bridge Crossing Crypto's Great Divide

Ethereum developers are using the Lightning payments network to build bridges into the bitcoin ecosystem.

The venture-backed crypto startup Radar Relay, best known for its decentralized exchange relayers for 0x, just launched a service called RedShift, which allows people to pay a lightning invoice from an ethereum wallet.

"There are some people out there who want to be bitcoin maximalists or only work on ethereum things. But I think there's a large, silent majority of us that are interested in multiple chains, in multiple assets, and want to build things that bridge between them."

MetaMask wallet users with an in-browser widget can simply add a second widget to their browsers and paste a lightning invoice into the ethereum wallet, like a normal wallet address.

On the back end, Radar will swap the ether for bitcoin and manage channels so the recipient is paid in bitcoin.

"Our number one request from [DEX] users and market makers was somehow adding the ability to trade bitcoin," Curtis said.

The Cross-Chain Working Group is already building a system for wrapped bitcoin tokens that can be used on the ethereum blockchain.

"You can take some bitcoin, buy some ETH, and do that settlement without losing custody," she said.

Whether startups focus on sidechains, lightning or other layered protocols like Arwen, Radar's Curtis said that bitcoin is still the best form of cryptographic money, due to open questions about how ethereum development will play out.

From his perspective, bridges that allow flows of value into bitcoin from more experimental assets can add more value to the bitcoin ecosystem by opening it up to new users.