Brazilian Hacker Develops A Coca-Cola Vending Machine That Accepts Bitcoin

In the latest crypto news, a Brazilian hacker is in the focus for building an actual vending machine that accepts Bitcoin payments and that is based on the Lighting Network (LN). Named Ricardo Reis, this computer programmer has been thinking of developing a machine like this for some time now.

As he explained his creation in a Medium post published a couple of days ago, the machine is actually a Bitcoin-enabled coke portal that used specific accessories to be built. Aside from his knowledge in programming and the supply of proper vending machine hardware that takes instructions from the user-interface, Reis also used the Lighting Network in order to enable faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions.

Unlike many normal Bitcoin transactions which are recorded and verified on a public blockchain, the Lighting Network (LN) in this case adds a secondary layer to create a payment channel that does not require transactions to be confirmed by the main blockchain until the users close the channel. In other words, this means that users can make a series of the transactions without the miners’ confirmation.

Introduced by the cryptocurrency developers Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja, the Lighting Network (LN) has been a great solution to Bitcoin’s slow on-chain transactions – and this machine is only one proof for it.

As Reis explained, the machine consists of a “Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, a Display 7″ Official Touch Screen Para Raspberry Pi, a Water pump RS 385, and a Bridge H L298N” in terms of its hardware.

When it comes to the software side, Reis has used Linux Raspbian in Raspberry Pi, Apache Server + PHP in Raspberry Pi, Wiring Pi (interface GPIO), BTCPAY as checkout solution, PUSHER as a web-socket solution, and HTML, PHP, Javascript e jQuery as applied programming languages.

When asked about the mix of software he used to create the Coca-Cola VM, Reis noted:

“In BTCPAY I create the invoice (payment button), so it generates a Lightning Network QR code for payment. I also set up a return URL (notification.php), which is the destination BTCPAY will inform when a purchase order has any changes, such as payment receipt.”