The Bitcoin Lightning Torch is on fire, literally. It has passed through the hands of Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and Fidelity Digital, the crypto branch of financial giant Fidelity Investments. It also made it into Iran despite censorship controls.
The Lightning Torch, which is intended to raise awareness, is nothing more than a symbolic $100 worth of Bitcoin being passed from person to person on the Bitcoin Lightning Network—a payments solution designed for smaller and faster Bitcoin payments—where each person adds 10,000 satoshis ($0.38). The widespread attention that the torch has created has encouraged more people to start using the nascent network, which can now support the movement of $3 million worth of Bitcoin.
But, like anything that’s doing well, copycats are on the prowl.
Bitcoin Cash, which was as a fork of Bitcoin recently launched its own version of the Lightning Network Torch, known as the “SLP Torch.” The name refers to the Simple Ledger Protocol, which is the means by which Bitcoin Cash is transacted, and was started by Bitcoin Cash fan “Cipher Gnome”.
So far, the token has been passed among a number of BTC celebrities including Roger Ver, who gave it to Paul Lambert, (brother of Spencer Lambert, who owns BCH chickens, a way for people to feed chickens through Bitcoin Cash donations.) You can watch the progress of the SLP Torch here.
The Ethereum community’s Gitcoin Torch, is a similar idea and was started by Eric Conner, the creator of EthHub, a font of Ethereum knowledge. The purpose is to raise funds for the Gitcoin grants program, which funds Ethereum projects. So far, six donors have raised $14,000.
EOS claims to have the fastest torch: Its EOS Torch is a token, ike the SLP Torch, and is being passed from one person to another. Many of the transactions have included messages. Some are cryptic, such as, “I have researched the magic shapes of the happiness no one escapes. Pass the Torch,” while others are not, such as, “With a great TORCH comes great responsibility.” You can watch the EOS torchiness here.
The torch is similar to the Olympic flame which ends in a big ceremony. Will there be a big Bitcoin ceremony and will the CEO of Bitcoin be there? We can only hope so.