Subway is accepting Bitcoin again but this time it’s using the fast, nearly free Bitcoin Lightning Network.
The world’s largest franchise by number of restaurants is trialing Bitcoin payments at three Subways in Germany’s capital, Berlin. Subway first experimented with Bitcoin almost 13 years ago in Moscow, Russia.
Over the past few months, Daniel Hinze, the Berlin Subway franchise owner, recorded over 120 Bitcoin transactions. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Hinze explained his desire “to help Bitcoin become money.”
Bitcoin is not a popular means of exchange in Europe, despite the efforts of merchants, retailers and even Lightning-enabled conferences. Hinze has encouraged Bitcoin payments by offering a 10% discount on all footlongs, meatball marinaras and sucookies paid for with BTC.
The experience of paying over the LN differs greatly from when Subway franchises first accepted Bitcoin payments in 2014. Before the arrival of the LN, customers would have to wait for around for several minutes.
Miners would mint the next block on the blockchain, with the transaction confirmed by Bitcoin nodes around the world. The process was inconvenient for retail payments due to the wait time as well as the sometimes high fees. With the LN, customers enjoy faster settlement times than Visa or Mastercard and lower fees thanks to a peer-to
