Coinbase Considers Integrating Bitcoin’s Lightning Network for Payments

<p>Coinbase plans to integrate Bitcoin's Lightning Network to facilitate faster cryptocurrency payments. According to a comment by the exchange's CEO Brian Armstrong, Coinbase supports the efforts to facilitate payments on Bitcoin through the Lightning Network.</p><p>Armstrong was responding to a tweet by Jack Dorsey, the Co-Founder and former CEO of Twitter, who criticized the exchange for allegedly ignoring Bitcoin and Lightning Network. Lightning is a layer-2 payment platform on top of the Bitcoin network, intended to facilitate faster transactions.</p><p>"We are looking
into how to best add Lightning. It is non-trivial, but I think it is worth
doing," Armstrong said." I am all for payments taking off in
Bitcoin." He added that the US-based cryptocurrency exchange had onboarded
more users to Bitcoin than probably any other company globally.</p><p>Coinbase under Pressure</p><p>Binance and Coinbase have been called out in the past for
not paying much attention to Lightning Network. However, Armstrong has
responded in the same way over and over to critics: that <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/search-results/?searchPhrase=coinbase&amp;filter=news" target="_blank" rel="follow">Coinbase</a> was planning to integrate the network.
However, he has not provided much details about what users should expect from the
integration or the timelines.</p><p>On the contrary, rival
cryptocurrency exchanges, including OKX, Kraken, and Bitfinex, have already integrated Lightning Network. OKX integrated the network in 2021, enabling users to deposit and withdraw BTC on the platform. Similarly, Kraken integrated
Lightning Network in 2022, terming it as an 'instant and inexpensive' way to
move BTC, while Bitfinex has used the network since 2019.</p><p>Faster Payments
Transactions</p><p><a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/lightning-network-integration-speeds-up-bitcoin-use/" target="_blank" rel="follow">The
Lightning Network</a> allows
transactions on Bitcoin to be taken off the main <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/terms/b/blockchain/">blockchain</a> by creating channels between the transacting parties. Once the transactions
have been completed, the channels are closed, and the details of the
transactions are recorded on the main Bitcoin blockchain. Thus the transactions
are completed much faster.</p><p>Additionally, the Lightning Network has attracted interest from traditional financial institutions. For instance, Xapo Bank <a target="_blank" href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/lightning-network-integration-speeds-up-bitcoin-use/">integrated the network</a> in March in partnership with Lightspark. During the launch, the Gibraltar-based financial institution said that customers could use the network to make purchases using Bitcoin.</p>

This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.