A Bitcoin Lightning payment request has been relayed through a geostationary satellite and then paid, in what appears to be the first public demonstration of a Lightning invoice transmitted “through actual space.”

Bitcoin Lightning Blasts Into Space

The experiment, carried out by the X user “Printer” (@Printer_Gobrrr), uplinked a Lightning invoice as an image to the QO-100 (Es’hail-2) amateur radio transponder and downlinked it back to Earth, where it was decoded and settled over the Lightning Network. “Achievement unlocked: Received and paid the first lighting [sic] invoice which was sent through actual space,” the user wrote on Sept. 9, 2025.

Achievement unlocked: Received and paid the first lighting invoice which was sent through actual space. pic.twitter.com/9zq5SYnAWK

— Printer ⚡

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