Bitcoin’s “Lightning Torch” Was Stolen 4 Times in 8 Days

The second iteration of the famous Bitcoin’s “Lightning Torch” was not as successful as the first round last year. The torch was stolen 4 times by dishonest participants in just 8 days.

The Lightning Torch is a game in which a participant sends a Lightning Network transaction to other participants around the world.

The participant then adds a few satoshis to the original transaction amount and passes it on to another participant. The game was originally developed to test the functionality of the Lightning Network and the limits of channel transactions.

This time the torch was stolen several times by less trustworthy participants. To continue the game, certain participants replaced the money from their own pockets and then passed it on to another, more trustworthy participant.

As Hodlonaut emphasizes, this theft has almost reached meme status, although the subsequent thefts are very likely to be imitations.

The thefts highlight the weakness of trust-based systems and the shortcomings in using a trust-based technology like Bitcoin in a way that still requires trust in a third party.

The community of Lightning Network enthusiasts spoke out against the thieves and thanked the participants who replaced the stolen funds out of their own pocket several times within the thread.

The first Lightning Torch got a lot of attention

The Lightning Torch caught a lot of attention the first time. Many well-known Bitcoiners participated — including Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter and Square, as well as Miss Universe Rosa-Maria Ryyti, Andreas Antonopoulos and other personalities.

The first Lightning Torch was passed on without complaint and theft, and the money raised was donated to Venezuela, which is currently experiencing a hyperinflationary collapse of the Bolivar national currency.

At the first Lightning Torch event, the participants added 10,000 satoshis each before passing the “torch” on to another participant. By the end of the event, over 5 million Satoshis had been collected and donated.

In a more symbolic moment of the first Lightning Torch, an Iranian Bitcoiner passed the torch on to an Israeli Bitcoiner as a gesture of peace. This particular transaction occurred at a time when both nations were in the headlines due to political unrest.

The recent problems with the theft of the second “flash torch” have prompted some Bitcoiners to rethink whether the novelty of the experiment has already worn out.

Even though the theft itself is a negative event related to Lightning, some die-hard Bitcoiners still consider it bullish to try to run away with the coins.

Author: Marko Vidrih

Featured image credit: Pixabay