Alby is open for Buzzness

A Bee for the Ecosystem

Bitcoin holds the promise of being the native currency of the internet. With Alby we want to contribute to this becoming a reality.

However, today there is still too much friction for users to frequently transact bitcoins online.

That’s why Alby was born. Alby’s mission is to provide the most convenient to use building blocks for Bitcoin, the money of the Internet, to transact directly, instantly and seamlessly online.

To create this seamless experience for consuming content and services online the Alby browser extension was launched - a building block needed to fulfill Bitcoin’s promise of becoming the native currency of the internet. It allows everyone to send and receive Bitcoin over the Lightning Network and on top:

• Easy payments: Users finally interact natively with Lightning on the web based on the WebLN standard. No context switching when picking-up the smartphone to scan a QR code. Users can even set allowances to automate payments
• Direct rewards: Alby brings bitcoin payments to traditional content platforms in the web (e.g. own websites, Twitter, YouTube, etc.). With its tipping features users can directly reward content creators or service providers on their existing platforms.
• Passwordless logins: Passwords have problems. They can be too weak, reused on multiple systems, deliberately shared with other users, and socially engineered. With Alby users can conveniently sign into websites that offer simple logins with Lightning. without using passwords.
• Connect own wallets: Users can connect their own Lightning wallets or nodes and remain with their trusted setup. Of course, not every user wants to connect an own wallet or has one at all. For these cases, Alby offers a custodial wallet directly in the extension. Although a non-custodial setup is recommended, users have the choice now.

Alby starts to fly

Alby was developed by the community, for the community from the beginning. Born out of the Lightning Hacksprints, previous browser extensions, and living in the hive of the Bitcoin Design Community as an open source project today, Alby makes sending and receiving Sats across the web seamless.

Raising an Alby bee is simple:
Alby is available for Chrome, Brave and Firefox. Connect your own wallet (or use ours).

That's IT!
Start sending and receiving Sats on the Lightning Network including web apps, Twitter, YouTube, BitcoinTV or individual websites and blogs (more to come).

Alby is only strong in a Swarm

We believe that Lightning Bitcoin is the native currency of the Internet and Alby is going to enable the use of that.

What HTTP is for information, Lightning Bitcoin is for money.

To turn this vision into reality that many of us share, we need to help (traditional) web apps to speak that language and provide support for that native currency. However, to promote the creation of great apps infused by Lightning, joint efforts are required for:

1. Better developer tooling, i.e. more and simpler tools to address a broader range of skills and interests of developers
2. Education and guides about available tools and interaction protocols such as WebLN and LNURL
3. Standardization of existing protocols and interfaces

Each of these points plays a key role for innovation and adoption. Particularly the WebLN standard makes Lightning payments programmatic and enables a totally new user experience. To continuously improve and merge it with onchain standards the working group “Bitcoin and Lightning Layer Specs” was formed together with Synonym.
Please, join the group on Telegram and visit the GitHub repo to participate in the discussions and stay up to date.

Increasing Lightning adoption is our central motive that unifies all participants of the Lightning ecosystem. We are in it together and build for a whole new world of use cases on Bitcoin.

Become a Beekeeper

If you wonder where to get started or how to contribute to build for this future, here are some examples:

• As a web app operator: learn about the potential and ease of implementation of WebLN. Don’t hesitate to reach out to us via email if you have questions or ideas how Alby can improve the UX of your app.
• As a developer, designer or business professional: visit the open source code repository for front-end, back-end and design tasks. Alby does a good job at labeling the challenges for senior and junior developers. Or join the weekly community calls and learn about current projects.
• As a user: Alby is looking for many more bee friends. Use it and give feedback. Suggest new features or report bugs via Telegram or on Alby’s feedback board (remember: Alby is still young).

Alby is gonna pollinate the world with Sats! Join the buzz.

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