Storj and Counterparty Partner to Create New Lightning-Based Payment Technology to Enable Two-Way Crypto Asset Transactions

Storj, a decentralized cloud storage service provider based on blockchain, has established a partnership with Counterparty, a smart contract tool provider based on the Bitcoin blockchain, to jointly create a new payment channel technology. The technology developed by Storj is currently in the proof-of-concept stage and will be used in the network payment process of Counterparty.

Storj’s concept payment technology was created to support the Lightning Network. The Lightning Network has only recently been made available on Bitcoin Core and is designed to solve the Bitcoin network’s scalability issues. The Lightning Network is an ideal solution for handling duplicate transactions between two parties without having to record every transaction on the Bitcoin network, thereby reducing miner transaction fees and processing time.

The Lightning Network sits on top of the main Bitcoin protocol and allows two people to create a secure payment channel that remains open for a specific period of time. As long as the channel is open, the two parties can make unlimited, instant transactions. Regardless of the number of transactions between the participants, the Bitcoin network will only record two transactions on the blockchain. One during the payment channel opening and another after the channel is terminated.

Storj’s payment technology currently supports one-way transactions of crypto assets, such as SJCX and other crypto assets. Two-way transactions will be supported in the coming days.

Storj CEO Shawn Wilkinson said of the company’s new project:

“These payment channels allow for instant, ‘streaming’ payments of SJCX, a Counterparty token, in exchange for storage space on our network.”

The implementation of Storj’s payment technology also marks the successful adoption of a two-way micropayment method for Bitcoin and Counterparty assets, which has been a long time in the development path of Counterparty. Ruben De Vries, the main developer of Counterparty, said:

“We are very excited about this development and applaud Storj for bringing this project to life. This is a huge step forward in enabling truly fast and nearly frictionless payments in Counterparty tokens, and the eventual use of Counterparty tokens on the Lightning Network.”

Storj’s new payment technology is expected to enter the beta testing phase in the third quarter of this year.

Other bitcoin companies, such as 21 Inc. and Blockchain.info, are also working on Lightning-based payment technologies. Blockchain.info’s Thunder Network is currently in its initial stages and is ready to be implemented once Bitcoin Core’s adoption of Lightning catches up.