Today, some big news came out that's largely flown under the radar (as Vertcoin tends to do lately), but I personally think the significance of this cannot be understated. I for one am very excited about this potential:

James Lovejoy, Lead Developer for Vertcoin, has announced that the team are working on a hardware that will run as a standalone device for running a Lightning LIT Node, which will really change the game of Lightning Network and atomic swaps.

It will allow pretty much anybody to create a node and open channels. Connecting to your router and only interfaced through a Web UI.

It will allow multiple devices (ie, phone, computer) to be used to interact with this device as a wallet - essentially acting as a server that your phone will connect with whenever you'd like to transact.

It will handle any coin that supports LIT implementation of Lightning Network.

It will store full nodes for specified coins.

It's being dubbed as a device that will allow you to "be your own bank", essentially making it a lot easier to do these kind of things securely, without being a tech genius.

Interesting to note that they are aiming to have a Minimum Viable product ready by the end of Q2, 2018. That is less than 5 months away!

I'm looking forward to hearing more information about this product, but from what I see right now, I think they'll be getting my money.

The following images are taken from the announcement, as communicated on the official vertcoin twitter: