Bitcoin Crave Result in Establishment of an Ice Cream Deli

Three college students are seeking to exploit a unique angle in the ice-cream deli business. The service is set to run on Bitcoins in-testing Lightning Network

The service, aptly named Block and Jerry’s has been in the idea stages for a while and is now in the test phase.

“We think that this is a motivating factor to jump into bitcoin and start playing around with the Lightning Network and getting to understand it,” Block and Jerry’s co-founder Rob Durst told CoinDesk.

Block and Jerry’s basic need is to have more people interested in Lightning technology.

A team led by developer Jeff Tang developed the application and followed through with a detailed guide for setting up and transacting on the Lightning network.

It’s ice-cream. It is bound to get a few users interested in the network.

A sweet treat

Block & Jerry’s plan on cornering a niche market with ice-cream names such as “Doge Food,” “Vitalik Garcia” and “Segwit2x.”

The founders any money, cryptocurrency or otherwise and they’re not disclosing on any delivery timelines. You might want to think of Block & Jerry’s like a visionary roadmap on the role that Lightning will play in pushing bitcoin acceptance.

Still, real bitcoin exchanges on Lightning are a 50-50 play ergo the idea behind Block and Jerry’s might attract some controversy.

Lightning Labs CEO, Elizabeth Stark fears that development of the Lightning implementation could be delayed if users lose money on the network.

Among her most prominent fears is that future releases may have compatibility issues leading to total shutdowns of some payment channels.

“It’s one thing to have people changing code on their own. It’s another for a company to be promoting software that is going to lose users money,” Stark said in a tweet. She was responding to the launch of Blockstream’s sticker store, one of the first to showcase Lightning’s merchant experience.

Such sentiments bring into question whether Block & Jerry’s will get the green light.

Brain freeze

The Block & Jerry’s team hold on to the theory that if people interact with the technology early enough, they might be motivated to play a part in its development.

So far, mostly Crypto developers are the only ones interacting with Lightning. It could use a finer user interface and a more comprehensible command line code.

The team believes the guide it created should be helpful to crypto users and developers with non-blockchain coding skills.

“We’re just doing what we can with the skills that we have,” Tang said.

Durst concluded:

“If you’re not making much money, and each dollar counts, I think you need a platform that offers cheaper, faster confirmations. And I think the Lightning Network can do this.”