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Wait a minute, is River Financial concerned in El Salvador’s bitcoin story? Since when? Apparently, the extremely revered monetary establishment is now processing the Chivo Wallet’s Lightning transactions. Which looks as if a step in the fitting route, but in addition comes with seemingly pointless counterparty threat. Why isn’t El Salvador dealing with the operation internally? And, will River Financial enhance the Chivo Wallet’s usability?

🔔 The time has come! 🔔

⚡ Announcing RLS: River Lightning Services ⚡

🔌 A Lightning Network gateway designed to energy the following technology of funds

🇸🇻 RLS is proud to energy LN transactions for El Salvador’s Chivo pockets

Let’s go 👉 https://t.co/XGAhSUg5mR pic.twitter.com/OqglyvAXyT

— River Financial (@River) October 11, 2022

In a Twitter thread saying RLS: River Lightning Services, its new product, River Financial dropped the bomb. Without any fanfare, they acknowledged, “RLS is proud to power LN transactions for El Salvador’s Chivo wallet.” They linked to the product’s official site, which comprises a Chivo emblem within the distinguished purchasers’ part. On the positioning, the corporate clarifies precisely what the product does:

“River Lightning Services (RLS) is the fastest, simplest API for enabling Bitcoin Lightning Network deposits and withdrawals in your product without running any Lightning infrastructure yourself.”

That sounds good for corporations, companies, outlets. Is it acceptable for an entire nation, although? Maybe it isn’t, nevertheless it’s significantly better than the thriller that used to encompass the Chivo Wallet venture. Was Algorand concerned in any approach, and in that case, why? Rumors flew, however no person knew for positive. Nowadays, we all know River Financial is caring for the Lightning aspect of issues. An organization with a good repute that runs a few of the bigger nodes on the Lightning Network.

What Is River Financial’s RLS?

Presenting the new custodial product, River Financial CEO Alex Leishman claims that “bitcoin is beginning to cross the chasm from a store of value to a transactional currency.” And what higher place to check that concept than El Salvador? For its half, River Financial was “the first financial institution in the United States to support Lightning Network deposits and withdrawals for clients.” The infrastructure they developed is the idea for the brand new product. 

“Last year we realized that this infrastructure and our operational expertise might be useful for other firms looking to integrate Lightning functionality into their applications, so we covertly built a public API for it. Since then, we have onboarded some incredible organizations to this API. One of these is El Salvador’s Chivo wallet, for whom we have been proudly powering Lightning transactions for almost a year.”

So, River Financial has been processing Chivo’s Lightning transactions for a yr now? Interesting. Back to RLS, River Financial threatens the world saying that they’ll begin “with Bitcoin and eventually supporting dollars and other assets over Lightning as the Taro project matures.” And then, the corporate explains how the product works beneath the hood:

“When onboarding with RLS you are given an account that you can fund to and sweep from on-chain. Processing LN withdrawals is as easy as making an API call with an invoice to be paid. You can easily generate invoices for deposits and we will notify your system via webhook when an invoice is paid.”

BTC worth chart for 10/14/2022 on FTX | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

The Risk

Let’s not beat across the bush, River Financial is an American firm. A totally compliant monetary firm that must observe each order from the US authorities. That firm has custody of the entire funds from each Salvadoran that makes use of the Chivo Wallet. President Bukele and his bitcoin staff are placing all of their residents’ BTC inside attain of the US authorities, risking censorship and seizure. Just for comfort. 

The bitcoin community is inbuilt a approach that enables the Salvadoran authorities to do it internally. El Salvador can and may maintain their very own keys and run their very own Lightning nodes. Sovereignty is vital. 

On the opposite hand, child steps. They’re now in River Financial’s fingers; which isn’t ideally suited, nevertheless it’s progress. Hopefully, El Salvador is constructing its personal inner buildings and groups. Meanwhile, River Financial guarantees to “continue to ship new features to give our customers access to the latest features the Lightning Network has to offer.” Something that, let’s be sincere, no authorities is ready to do.

They ought to be ready to carry their very own keys, although.

Featured Image by Sven Lachmann from Pixabay | Charts by TradingView