FAQ

Cashless is the future: the share of cashless payments is not only increasing by about 20% annually, but has replaced cash payments with about 80% in 2021. Bitcoin is the payment method of the future. lipa offers very easy access to Bitcoin and the Lightning network based on it. This allows lipa to process payments in seconds without the need for a financial institution to be involved and fees can be kept transparent and very low (0.98%). Completed payments cannot be reclaimed by third parties without the seller’s consent (anti-fraud). Furthermore, no expensive additional device is needed for payment processing anymore: the lipa app is enough! That’s why more and more private individuals and businesses are turning to lipa.

Bitcoin only: lipa deliberately focuses on true decentralization and a system where no one with money can take control. You are always in control of your money. You alone own the key and no one can take away your bitcoin balance. Also lipa has no access to your balance at any time. lipa focuses on maximum transparency: With us, customer and seller know at any time how many fees are incurred. We charge a fee of 0.98% for each transaction, no matter how large the amount. With our Business Terminal, a company can authorize several employees to receive Bitcoin on behalf of the company without having access to the wallet. Thus, employees only see their own transactions.

You don’t need cash or an account at a bank! You pay with Bitcoin and Satoshi from your wallet. You can pay quickly and easily, and you feel good because the recipients of your payment have to pay much lower fees than with other payment methods. You have maximum transparency, maximum security and maximum control over your money. With lipa, you leave no data traces: Your bank or financial institution cannot create an overview of your purchases and consumption habits. And there are no additional fees abroad. Moreover, this way you are a trendsetter and with lipa you support bitcoin as a payment method of the future. These are good reasons, aren’t they?

You don’t need a bank account to make payments with lipa! After installing the lipa app on your smartphone, you can immediately receive Bitcoin for your sales! Your fees are significantly lower than other cashless payment methods at 0.98 percent. Moreover, you don’t need an expensive card reader infrastructure: the app on your smartphone or tablet is enough. Your employees can also accept payments with their smartphones, but they do not have access to your wallet. Payments are made easily in just a few seconds. You offer maximum transparency and maximum security. With lipa, you show your open-minded customers that you are open to social ideas and recognize trends: You support bitcoin as the payment method of the future and reveal yourself as an early adopter. If that doesn’t help your image!

lipa Wallet for Business is free to install in the Apple and Google app stores. There are no basic fees. Costs are incurred through the use of lipa. We charge the minimum fee of 0.98% of the invoice amount of each transaction.

Bitcoin is not only the first cryptocurrency and the market leader, Bitcoin is also a philosophy. Thanks to the community, this currency offers real decentralization: Bitcoin is developed solely by the people in the community. There is no central administration and no CEO. As a result, Bitcoin cannot be pressured or controlled by a central authority. Bitcoin also offers security through Proof of Work: bitcoins are created by doing real work. They are not simply created out of thin air - work and time must be expended. Each transaction is recorded by the network participants and ultimately entered into the distributed ledger. Once this is done, the transaction cannot be changed. Bitcoin originated as a response to the banking crises and relies on deflation. By slowing inflation (halving Bitcoin paid out per 10 minutes every four years), deflation is achieved by about 2140. The thought behind this: Money should be worth more tomorrow, and savers should be rewarded.

Bitcoin also enables a real separation of money and state: worldwide corruption is to be counteracted in this way. In the future it shall no longer be possible to finance wars by printing state money. The money should belong to the people (the community), not to the banks or even the state. The Bitcoin community wants to turn the status quo into a better one. Sustainability is also an important cornerstone of the philosophy: the Bitcoin network is an energy consumer of last resort. Electricity overproduction can be mitigated by Bitcoin, and cheap surplus electricity can thus be monetized (converted into value). In this way, the construction of renewable energy infrastructures could also be refinanced.

The Bitcoin Lightning network (Lightning for short) is the Bitcoin “payment system”. It uses Bitcoin as a security layer and processes payments indirectly via Bitcoin. With Lightning, it is possible to make payments within seconds. Once a payment is made, no cancellation is possible.

All users of the lipa app have full control over their credit at all times The lipa app offers maximum protection against identity theft: No private information about the users is kept and can therefore not be disclosed. Transactions are not linked to real identities: Sender and recipient are represented only as a random sequence of characters. Paying with Bitcoin via the Lightning network is therefore anonymous.

Bitcoin (short form: BTC) is a digital currency. Bitcoin is created and stored electronically. Bitcoin is not “printed” or created by central banks like currencies. Instead, it is calculated decentrally by people from around the world using computer power. Bitcoin is not subject to central or government control. It is used to purchase goods and services or to conduct financial transactions. Thus, Bitcoin has the same functions as conventional currencies. However, unlike in the traditional banking system, a transaction with Bitcoin is based on consent between the parties involved. Bitcoin is also “permissionless,” which means that anyone who wants to can participate.

Bitcoin can be regarded as a means of payment or monetary unit like a currency in its own right. It is managed decentrally on the computer network with the help of software developed by the community. The system is based on a decentralized database that is managed jointly by all participants. All transactions are recorded immutably in this database. Participation requires a Bitcoin client such as lipa: a software or online service to transfer and receive Bitcoin. It also needs an internet connection to carry out transactions. The Bitcoin system works across countries and can be used from anywhere.

A so-called peer-to-peer network is used to distribute transactions among participants, and all participating computers must connect to it. Bitcoin is used through a digital wallet called a wallet. Once a Lightning payment has been confirmed by the network, it cannot be revoked. The confirmation takes only a few seconds. In order for a payment to be made, lipa charges business customers a minimum fee: 0.98 percent.

Bitcoin was the first and is the most significant cryptocurrency in the world. The founder, a person or group behind the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”, launched the cryptocurrency in 2009 for idealistic reasons. The goal is to bridge the need for banks, financial institutions, or trust with third parties and democratize the monetary system. Satoshi Nakamoto had realized that humanity needed sound money that could not be controlled by a central authority such as a state. Due to the fact that the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto is not known to this day, and that he retired very early on, this is exactly what has been achieved. Bitcoin is now used and further developed by people and is thus maximally decentralized. Bitcoin’s success has attracted hundreds of imitators and continues to do so today. The so-called altcoins are sprouting like mushrooms. They often promise to be better than Bitcoin in some way. However, one thing is usually forgotten here: These projects are always launched by a central entity (a person or company). Thus, altcoin is centralized because the voice of the originators is weighted more and more heavily in the further development. In contrast, Bitcoin solves the problem of sound money that people can use without having to trust a central party.

Bitcoin works on the basis of a decentrally organized booking system. All payments are cryptographically legitimized with a digital signature and processed via a connection of computers with equal rights (peer-to-peer). There is no need for a bank or financial institution to own Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the payment system of the future. Transactions with Bitcoin are settled directly between the parties involved. Bitcoin also ensures that your money will be worth more tomorrow thanks to “deflation by design”, encouraging savings and sustainable consumption. At the same time, Bitcoin offers anonymity: no one knows how much you own and when you buy what and where. You don’t have to trust that your bank or financial institution will do everything right. Moreover, no third party can prevent you from making a payment.

A wallet is a digital wallet. It allows you to access the network and use Bitcoin. A Bitcoin wallet can be easily opened within a few seconds. There is no paperwork and no forms to fill out. For payments using Bitcoin and Satoshi (the next smallest unit under Bitcoin), the wallet must be topped up - so there must be Bitcoin funds to make the payment. Wallets come as a desktop application and as an app. However, there are also hardware wallets, for example in the form of USB sticks. The personal wallet receives a cryptographic key: this can be used to authorize payments.

A Bitcoin wallet is like your savings account at the bank where you keep your assets. With one exception: as long as you use the wallet on your computer or a hardware wallet, Bitcoin is always yours alone - no one can access it or block a payment with it. For Bitcoin, there are software wallets, which tend to be a bit more insecure (because online) and hardware wallets, which provide more security offline (not connected to your computer).

A Bitcoin Lightning Wallet (like lipa) is like your wallet that you use to make your daily payments. Lightning wallets are compatible with each other and usually with Bitcoin wallets (transaction between Bitcoin and Lightning). By separating your Bitcoin wallet and Bitcoin Lightning wallet, you can keep your assets separate from your “wallet”.

In general, Bitcoin requires electricity. You can even say that it stores electricity in monetary form through proof of work. What this means for CO2 emissions is strongly influenced by the power source used. In general, Bitcoin miners have the incentive to use the cheapest possible power source. The cheapest electricity is surplus electricity that does not find an immediate buyer; this is predominantly electricity from sustainable production. Calculating the electricity consumption of individual transactions therefore makes no sense, since Bitcoin always consumes the same amount of electricity under the same conditions, no matter how many transactions are made. The security of the Bitcoin network is guaranteed by the amount of electricity used to date, i.e. in order to want to change a transaction, 51% of the total electricity flowing into this network would have to be raised; an extremely costly affair.

Instant settlement means that a transaction is final when you or your wallet sign it on your behalf (i.e. sign it with your private key/password) and give this to the other party. Thus, the other party can always prove that you have confirmed this transaction. So the transaction cannot be reversed or cancelled. This is achieved through cryptography via Lightning protocol, which is built on top of the Bitcoin protocol. So if someone tries to cheat, it can be proven. Fraud attempts are automatically punished by the network.

Bitcoin does not enable the identification of trading partners. Transactions are normally not linked to the real identity of the parties. Only if the Bitcoin for the transaction were exchanged via a third-party provider (exchange), which require identification of the persons involved (KYC), the Bitcoin and thus the transaction can be uniquely attributed to a person. For payments, sender and recipient are represented by a unique address as a random sequence of characters. Therefore, it is possible to use Bitcoin pseudonymously. Thus, no user data is collected in advance when payments are made with Bitcoin.