Coinbase Now Offers Cheaper And Faster Bitcoin Via Lightning Network

Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the United States, just added support to the Lightning Network, a payments and routing solution that makes transacting in bitcoin cheaper and faster. Despite being around since 2017, Coinbase took the time to add this improvement to its platform. The new technology addition is powered by Lightspark, a Lightning Network company founded by David Marcus.

"Excited to be live on the Bitcoin Bitcoin Lightning network - let's get every transaction under 1 second and 1 cent to bring in the next wave of adoption," Coinbase Chief Executive Brian Armstrong posted on X after the announcement. For this integration, Coinbase uses Lightspark's remote-key signing implementation, with Coinbase holding the signing keys entirely while Lightspark operates its node.

Protocol Specialist Viktor Bunin unveiled Coinbase's plans to integrate the Lightning Network in September 2023. Since then, as per Bunin's updates, Coinbase has been exploring the potential and challenges associated with this technology. This addition underscores Coinbase's commitment to staying at the forefront of technological advancements in the cryptocurrency industry, even with a delay.

Lightning Network is a payment solution built on top of Bitcoin. It uses bitcoin transactions and time-locks to create nodes and channels that enable cheap and fast transactions. Typically, users need to wait at least ten minutes to have their transactions confirmed on the Bitcoin base layer. With this solution on top of it, this wait time is reduced to seconds, and the fee is remarkably cheaper. Eight months later, the implementation is here and available to millions of Coinbase users.

"We're so thrilled to be part of this journey with you to bring Lightning to hundreds of millions of people in over 100 countries. This is a big milestone for the entire network and for Bitcoin," Lightspark's CEO David Marcus posted on X.

Despite the news around Bitcoin’s privacy and self-custody coming from the Department of Justice in the U.S., Coinbase, one of the largest companies in the industry and the country, is taking a step further in bitcoin adoption.