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Coca Cola Vending Machine Operating On Lightning Network For Bitcoin Payments

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Published 5 years ago on October 02, 2018
By Robert Johnson
Coca Cola Vending Machine Operating On Lightning Network For Bitcoin Payments
We all dream of the day we can buy a coke (or other cola flavoured soft drink) through the power of the lightning network. Wouldn’t it be great if we could swap a few satoshi’s for a nice cold glass of coke? Well, now, thanks to the creative mind of Ricardo Reis, a hardware hacker from Spain, you can do just that. Reis has created a hand built Coca Cola vending machine that operates on the lightning network to provide users a glass of the good stuff in exchange for Bitcoin. By scanning the built in QR code, the machine automatically receives and authorises the Bitcoin payment, dispensing a glass of cola in return, all in a simple matter of seconds. Now, we know this would be much quicker if it operated on top of the Ethereum network, or an alternative blockchain, you get the idea though. Whilst this is clearly a novel demonstration of how the lightning network can be easily integrated into thousands of different services, it also acts as a more serious demonstration of the open source nature of the blockchain. Of course, you can’t use the code built for this without having built a custom made coke dispensing machine as well, so some technical expertise is required, overall though, the sheer existence of blockchain technology makes products like this entirely possible. Granted, from the video it does seem as if this prototype probably isn’t ready for a commercial roll out, either way though it does demonstrate some of the lightning networks fantastic possibilities. Will Coca Cola buy into this? Probably not. It would be pretty easy for them to integrate Bitcoin payments into existing vending machines, therefore if this was something they wanted to break into, they would have done so already. As per The Next Web:
“Sadly, right now the vending machine is just a proof-of-concept, and of course has no affiliation to the actual Coca-Cola company.”
In that case, let’s bin off coke, who wants to buy into a Bitcoin beer dispenser instead? References The Next Web
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Robert Johnson

Robert first came across Bitcoin in 2016 during a meetup in Belgium, and has been hooked ever since. With a background in Economics, you can find Robert frequently looking at the Twitter feed of the SEC for any regulatory updates relating to Bitcoin and Crypto in general.

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