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Coinbase is officially rolling out support for Lightning Network, according to details shared today.
The exchange’s integration of the Bitcoin layer-2 solution is in partnership with enterprise-grade infrastructure firm Lightspark.
This integration means Coinbase customers will now have access to instant and cheap BTC transfers. Customers can send, receive, or pay with BTC via Lightning, with this now possible directly from a customer’s Coinbase account.
“The future of payments is crypto and Coinbase is committed to building and scaling faster, cheaper, more secure payments across blockchain networks. By partnering with Lightspark to integrate the Lightning Network, Coinbase is demonstrating its support of Bitcoin while remaining focused on decreasing both transaction times and fees,” the exchange wrote in a blog post.
Coinbase finally integrates Lightning Network
Lightning Network is a network on top of Bitcoin that allows for instant off-chain BTC transfers, with transaction fees that are at just a fraction of that paid on the main network. Adoption for the Lightning Network has increased rapidly following its launch in 2017.
However, unlike some other top tier exchanges that added support sometime back, Coinbase did not. That’s until the exchange’s announcement in September 2023 that it would add support for Lightnining.
The announcement came a few months after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong had indicated the exchange’s plans in April.
Today’s announcement and official roll out brings this feature to millions of Coinbase’s users around the world.
It also means that Coinbase now joins other exchanges, including Binance, Bitfinex, OKX and Kraken in adding support for Lightning.
Following the integration, Coinbase will progressively roll out support to more users. This means initial network availability will slowly increase to cover all regions.
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