Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions have gained significant traction this year but have also drawn their fair share of criticisms. Mempool founder Mononaut has strongly criticized them and pointed out several drawbacks from a technical standpoint. Interestingly, Mononaut’s stance gains support as Bitcoin Ordinals founder Casey Rodarmor. Bitcoin Layer 2 Under Fire The main objective of...Read More
Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, has selected the company that will spearhead the implementation of Bitcoin’s lightning network at the exchange. That partner is Lightspark – a lightning infrastructure provider led by PayPal co-founder David Marcus. Lightning Is Coming To Coinbase Per an announcement from Lightspark on Wednesday, their technology will...Read More
Prominent crypto exchange Bitfinex has announced a collaboration with Synonym to introduce a new feature that enables customers to purchase Lightning Network connections for instant deposits, withdrawals, and payments. The Lightning Channel feature is offered through Blocktank, a platform operated by Synonym, a subsidiary of Tether Holdings Limited. Bitfinex Teams Up With Synonym According to...Read More
A prominent Bitcoin Lightning wallet provider – Wallet of Satoshi – announced its decision to remove its app from the US Apple and Google app stores. In a Twitter post addressed to the community, Wallet of Satoshi clarified that it will cease catering to customers in the country. This sparked speculation that the decision might...Read More
Libra creator David Marcus has put forth a compelling argument asserting that the Lightning Network is the singular solution to scale Bitcoin effectively. Marcus, a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency space, contends that alternative blockchain products either exhibit excessive centralization or lack the necessary security measures. Marcus Advocates for Lightning Network In a post on...Read More
Renowned blockchain developer Antoine Riard has issued an urgent plea for updates to Bitcoin’s source code. Antoine Riard’s research paper delves into the critical vulnerabilities within the Lightning Network, shedding light on a particular category of transaction-relay jamming attacks known as “replacement cycling.” Replacement Cycling Attacks on the Lightning Network The Lightning Network was created...Read More
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that the crypto exchange is exploring the “best” way to integrate the Lightning Network after being called out for not adding support for the layer-2 scaling solution, which enables faster and cheaper BTC transactions than the Bitcoin base network. The comment comes a month after Binance added LN capability for...Read More
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey pressed Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on Wednesday over his alleged refusal to acknowledge the power of Bitcoin’s lightning network – a layer-2 scaling solution designed to make BTC easier to spend. His question sparked an online debate about the benefits and limitations of lightning in the payments realm, compared to other...Read More
Crypto exchange Binance announced it has completed the integration of Bitcoin on the Lightning Network (LN). The move will enable Binance users to leverage the scaling solution for Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals. When depositing BTC, users will have the additional option of “BTC-Lightning” alongside the standard choices of Bitcoin, BEP20, SegWit, and others. With the...Read More
The hype surrounding Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking multiple industries by storm, and the digital assets industry appears to be readily embracing the tech. Lightning Labs has become the latest platform to tap the space. The team behind the Bitcoin Lightning Network announced the release of a new set of developer tools to enable the...Read More
Following through on its promise in May, crypto exchange giant Binance confirmed on Tuesday that it has begun running multiple nodes on Bitcoin’s lightning network. The exchange plans to leverage the layer-2 scaling solution to enable cheaper Bitcoin (BTC) deposits and withdrawals on its platform. Binance resolved to integrate lightning after an explosion in memecoin...Read More
Apple has issued a warning to the decentralized social networking company, Damus with expulsion from the App Store if it does not remove a feature that enables Bitcoin payments. Damus, which is based on top of a decentralized social media protocol Nostr, was developed as a Twitter alternative and is backed by Jack Dorsey. Since...Read More
Bitcoin payment service provider – Bitpay – announced the integration of Brave Wallet into its payment protocol allowing crypto wallet users to make payments straight from the privacy browser. According to the official press release shared with CryptoPotato, users of Brave Wallet will be able to shop with crypto at thousands of top merchants online...Read More
Strike – a Bitcoin payments company and remittance app – announced Friday that it is now available for download to over 3 billion people worldwide, including dozens of new countries. The international expansion will allow wallet users in India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and other countries to remit payments to one another in both USD...Read More
Business intelligence company MicroStrategy is doubling down efforts on bringing Bitcoin layer 2 scaling solution – Lightning Network – capabilities this year. Its executive chairman Michael Saylor shared an update notifying that the company is working on a product aimed at delivering a Bitcoin wallet and Lightning address to every corporate account holder. The main...Read More
While Bitcoin had whittled down waitlisted transaction orders by Wednesday, network congestion remains high. Median confirmation time hovered markedly above ten minutes. The on-chain metric for Bitcoin network fulfillment sits at a high unseen since Feb 2023 and Dec 2022. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of transactions at a time sit waiting to be confirmed. That’s...Read More
Bitcoin wallet service provider BlueWallet has decided to shut down Lndhub.io, a Lightning Network node on the Bitcoin Network used to store and trade satoshis (sats) – the smallest denomination of the primary cryptocurrency. The Lightning Network is a layer-2 protocol layered on the Bitcoin protocol, used to process micropayments among participating nodes to facilitate...Read More
Strike – a Bitcoin payment company and wallet provider – has expanded its “Send Globally” feature to the Philippines, allowing locals to receive lightning-based remittances directly to their bank account. This marks the second-wave rollout for Send Globally after its initial release to Africa in December. Fixing the Remittance System In a press release published...Read More
Bitcoin payment and wallet company Strike has partnered with fintech giant Fiserv to integrate Bitcoin’s lightning network with the point-of-sale terminal provider, Clover. This will allow certain Clover merchants to accept lightning payments, expanding Bitcoin’s use case as a medium of exchange. Dollars Over Lightning As explained by Strike CEO Jack Mallers over Twitter on...Read More
Bitcoin payments platform Strike has now expanded to Africa, enabling instant and low-cost remittances to the continent by leveraging its new “Send Globally” feature. The tool, available to all American Strike users, will offer initial coverage to Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana. Bringing Bitcoin to Africa As announced by Strike on Tuesday, the feature was launched...Read More
After the recent v0.15.3. update to the Lightning Network, a critical security vulnerability was discovered by independent cybersecurity researchers that would potentially allow bad actors to stop lnd nodes from parsing transactions. A Lightning Network Daemon (lnd) is a full implementation of a Lightning Network Node, along with the services and plug-ins that allow it...Read More
CashApp is now fully compatible with the lightning network for sending and receiving Bitcoin payments. The full integration makes Bitcoin significantly easier to use as a means of payment via a commonly used consumer app. CashApp Integrates Lightning The mobile payment service enabled users to send lightning payments to external lightning wallets (ex. Chivo Wallet,...Read More
The combined capacity in public channels of Bitcoin Lightning Network’s total capacity in public channels has crossed 5000 BTC for the first time. BTC’s main scaling solution, designed to make transactions cheaper and faster, has made some positive developments in recent times with expansion and development. The new feat comes less than four months after...Read More
Prominent business intelligence and software company MicroStrategy is looking to hire a software engineer to develop a Lightning Network-based SaaS platform. This comes shortly after the firm’s former CEO – Michael Saylor – stepped down. According to its job listing, the company has advertised for a position that seeks an experienced software developer for a...Read More
Galoy – an open-source Bitcoin banking platform – has introduced a new feature allowing individuals to hold U.S. dollar balances over Bitcoin’s lightning network. However, unlike other attempts to bring dollars to the blockchain, the feature uses neither stablecoins nor a direct fiat payment integration. Backing Dollars With Bitcoin As explained in a video shared...Read More
FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) issued another statement on Thursday regarding his opinion on Bitcoin’s scaling potential. He believes the network itself is not designed to handle massive volumes, but that various neighboring technologies can help Bitcoin – as an asset – be used for global trade. Asset Can Scale, Network Cannot As tweeted by...Read More
Mash, a Lightning network startup, has announced raising $6 million in seed funding. Expanding its team across different fields such as engineering, marketing, sales, and business development also remains an area of focus in addition to executing its go-to-market strategy. Seed Round According to the official blog post, the investment round was co-led by Castle...Read More
CashApp – the mobile payment service developed by Block – announced many major Bitcoin-related upgrades on Thursday. One of the new integrations allows users to automatically convert their incoming paychecks into Bitcoin. Another Wave of Bitcoin Features CashApp is quite familiar with Bitcoin and its surrounding technology already. It already allows users to purchase Bitcoin...Read More
BitPay – a popular cryptocurrency payments provider – has now integrated Bitcoin’s lightning network into its platform. This will allow Bitcoin payments to settle much faster, and cost far less, than ordinary transactions. Lightning Network Effective Immediately The lightning network is a Bitcoin ‘layer 2’ scaling solution that allows individual Bitcoin holders to form private...Read More
The Bitcoin community celebrated as the layer 2 payment system reached a total of over 3,400 BTC locked. That is an equivalent of around $141 million. Bringing near-zero fee BTC payments, Lightning’s adoption rose dramatically over the last year. During the same period, bitcoin became significantly more utilized as a network and an investment asset...Read More
