Can the Bitcoin Lightning Network enable truly secure messaging? This developer thinks so

End-to-end encrypted, onion-routed, censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer chat messages have been built on top of the Lightning Network.

Created by Lightning Labs engineer Joost Jager, the secure chat is currently still in the demo version but has the potential to become a service if no major changes to the Lightning protocol are made.

Secure messages over Lightning Network debut on GitHub.

The tightening regulatory grip over freedom of speech has forced messaging apps either to sacrifice the data of their users to continue to operate or exist in a legal grey zone.

As an answer to the lack of truly secure messaging apps on the market, a Lightning Labs engineer utilized the Lightning Network to create a message protocol.

According to Joost Jager, the Lightning Network can be used as an end-to-end encrypted, onion-routed, censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer chat.

Changes in Lightning protocol enable messages to be sent for free.

The developer then created a demo that leverages this by attaching a text message and a sender signature to a transaction on the Lightning Network.

The network then delivers the message as it would any other transaction, but no money is paid either by the sender or the receiver.

In a Twitter post, Jager asked his followers how much would they be willing to pay for the ability to send private, encrypted messages over the Lightning Network, with most saying a yearly fee for such a service should be between $10 and $25.Posted In: Bitcoin, People of Blockchain, Technology.