Excel isn’t really known for being many people’s favorite application, so it begs the question as to why a developer has spent time creating a plugin that lets you run a Lightning Network node within it. On first appearance, this seems like a pointless plugin, but when you consider how many people use the application for accounting purposes it soon becomes clear that there is method behind the madness. Pierre Rochard – the developer of the plugin – believes that it will become wildly popular, but only time will tell.
The LND node software now runs from *within* the Excel plugin. With neutrino, that means that a Windows + Excel user can be making and receiving LN payments with a few clicks. https://t.co/qeP2dCJSqp
— Pierre Rochard [⚡️] (@pierre_rochard) October 24, 2018
Targeting a Large Audience
Rochard believes that 99.9% of all people working in the world of finance and accounts have Excel installed on their machine. Now, when you factor in that cryptocurrencies are quickly becoming part of most investors’ portfolios, a Lightning Network payment ability doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Excel users could configure a formula to automatically add and deduct Lightning Network payments from the account balance and add the transaction to the record list. This would help a crypto user’s accountant save precious time when it comes to processing figures.
Coming to Excel Very Soon
Unfortunately, Rochard admits there is no proof of concept available, but he promises that it will be made available to the public towards the end of November. Once the plugin is live and available for all, he will release the source code to let developers tweak and fine-tune it for their individual needs.
Crypto Accounting Gaining Popularity
As more people add cryptos to their investment portfolios, how to handle taxation becomes a more pressing issue. However, due to the largely unregulated industry, many people have no clue how to fill out their tax returns properly. Zenledger is a great new app that will help you fill out the correct amount and pay the proper amount of taxes. If you then link this up with an Excel database that tracks your accounts, it will be even more accurate and you can sleep at night knowing the IRS isn’t coming for you.
While this new Lightning Network plugin for Excel might not be everyone’s cup of tea, it certainly opens new avenues into the crypto payment world. Potentially any firm that uses a heavy-duty Excel point of sale system could use the plugin to accept cryptos, but the development work to integrate it might be off-putting. Rochard is certainly highlighting the flexibility of the Lightning Network with this plugin and hopefully it inspires more developers to get involved.
