At first I thought there's no way, but it does look like the team has some bitcoin connections (eg former Buttercoin).

I assume the white paper is another riff on "lightning" (eg Blockchain's "Thunder")

Afaik there is lightning, thunder, raiden, and now bolt. That said, bolt looks pretty useful on first skim, and I wouldn't be surprised if it gets implemented for monero (I know the authors are the zcash authors, but on first skim looks applicable to any coin)

Nope. (I work there).