Did you ever think that something as fundamental as the
Did you ever think that something as fundamental as the Microsoft Excel that we all use on our computers, can someday enable bitcoin transactions, with the help of a simple plugin? I bet not. However, there is one man who claims that he has done exactly that.
Pierre Rochard, a software engineer and Founder of Bitcoin Advisory, recently took to Twitter to inform the community about his recent successful experiment, that is bound to make some jaws drop. He tweeted that he was able to develop a plugin for Microsoft Excel that would allow Bitcoin transactions. The entire project demonstrates the immense potential of the Lightning Network (LN).
Now the LN’s ‘light clients’ have access to something called a Neutrino. It allows those users to make payments, who do not use a complete node. Rochard claims that it is the Neutrino which facilitated his experiment and made it possible.
The LND node software now runs from *within* the Excel plugin. With neutrino, that means that a Windows + Excel user can be making and receiving LN payments with a few clicks. https://t.co/qeP2dCJSqp
— Pierre Rochard [#BIP157] (@pierre_rochard) October 24, 2018
LND here stands for Lightning Network Daemon, which is currently in beta version 0.5. Rochard got the LND node software to run inside the Excel plugin, thereby making it possible to send and receive payments.
For those wondering why this is a big deal, let us consider the reach of Microsoft Excel. It is one of the most widely used Microsoft tools and is fairly simple to understand. If something as complicated (relatively) as bitcoin transactions was brought on to the level of Excel, more and more people will be comfotable with bitcoins and engage in trade.
Rochard has claimed that the technology is still in its development stage and he is currently experimenting with it.
Needless to say, Twitter bombarded Rochard with responses. The community was both interested and surprised. Some were also dismissive about the entire thing. Most users congratulated Rochard and appreciated his efforts and many expressed interest in knowing the future benefits of a technology like this.
Rochard said 99.99% of the users who belong to the finance industry use Microsoft Excel and thereby this could be really useful for them:
Reality: 99.99% of finance and accounting has Excel on their desktop. They send the most pmts
The user interface of open, decentralized finance is @msexcel. A plugin is tablestakes for any crypto project.
Integrating with @lightning's gRPC API using C# is a joy!#DeFi #BUIDL pic.twitter.com/cpcoFmbL8X
— Pierre Rochard [#BIP157] (@pierre_rochard) October 13, 2018
Rochard has not yet released a definite date for when this technology will be made public, but according to him, public release will be sometime at the end of this month since the plugin is already practically complete.