Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, has announced a groundbreaking partnership with Lightspark, a company led by CEO David Marcus, former President of PayPal. This collaboration will see the integration of the Bitcoin Lightning Network onto Coinbase’s platform, allowing customers to conduct instant and cost-effective bitcoin transactions.
The decision to incorporate the Lightning Network comes as a strategic move by Coinbase to enhance the efficiency and speed of its services. Shan Aggarwal, VP of Corporate & Business Development at Coinbase, expressed the company’s commitment to making the global financial system faster and more efficient through this partnership with Lightspark.
Lightspark, which has dedicated nearly two years to developing its platform as a premier entry point to the Lightning Network, offers sophisticated tools and services such as SDKs, APIs, and developer tools to simplify the process of implementing and managing Lightning nodes. One key aspect of the integration is Lightspark’s remote-key signing implementation, where Coinbase holds the Lightning signing keys while Lightspark hosts the Lightning node, ensuring scalability, reliability, and optimization of node infrastructure.
Viktor Bunin, Coinbase Protocol Specialist, praised the technical expertise and collaborative spirit of the Lightspark team, emphasizing the seamless partnership between the two companies. The official announcement of the integration comes almost a year after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong committed to integrating the Lightning Network onto the exchange, highlighting the company’s dedication to meeting the increasing demand for efficient Bitcoin transactions.
With Coinbase facilitating a significant $154 billion in quarterly volume traded across its platform, the integration of the Lightning Network is expected to provide customers with access to cheap and efficient Bitcoin transactions, further improving scalability. This move is particularly timely given the rising Bitcoin prices and transaction fees in the market.
Overall, the partnership between Coinbase and Lightspark represents a significant milestone in the cryptocurrency industry, showcasing the potential for innovative solutions to enhance the user experience and drive adoption of digital assets. The integration of the Lightning Network onto Coinbase’s platform is set to revolutionize the way customers engage with Bitcoin transactions, setting a new standard for efficiency and accessibility in the crypto space.