Leveraging the Lightning Network for branding? Is that even possible? Voltage, a bitcoin infrastructure provider, makes a great case for it. Granted, their “Identity and brand on the Lightning Network” article is in itself a branding effort by the company. That doesn’t mean the information it contains is invalid, though. In fact, they probably hit the nail on the head with this one. The company’s CEO, Graham Krizek, is the piece’s author. “One of the interesting things about the Lightning Network is that you as a node operator have a “billboard” (an alias) with which to advertise your node. The alias is a human-readable, and changeable value that people interacting with your node can see,” he says going straight to the point. The other factor here is time. Companies that start their branding efforts now will reap the most benefits in the future. Let’s let Voltage explain what their thesis is about: “The Lightning Network is still in the Innovator to Early Adopter phase of the Adoption S-Curve. Despite rapid growth, participants continue to have a unique opportunity to use minimal effort to capture a large potential upside in value. The creation of a node in under 2 minutes allows companies and individuals to have a stake in the Lightning Network and leverage this to build differentiating brands.” The keywords here are “minimal effort” and “under 2 minutes,” but don’t let Voltage fool you. Spinning up a node might be an easy an...