BitPay – a popular cryptocurrency payment provider – has now integrated Bitcoin’s Lightning Network into its platform. This will allow bitcoin payments to be settled much faster and at a much lower cost than normal transactions.
Lightning Network effective immediately
The Lightning Network is a bitcoin ‘Layer 2’ scaling solution that allows individual bitcoin holders to create private payment channels between each other. These payment channels enable users to perform multiple off-chain transactions, allowing transaction throughput orders of magnitude higher than Bitcoin’s base layer.
Now, BitPay merchants can receive payments from wallets that support the Lightning Network, such as Strike and CashApp. Block created its Lightning Network dev kit after the later introduced layer 2 bitcoin payments, which are also publicly shared to drive adoption to other wallet services.
Since payments do not compete for on-chain block space, transaction fees are virtually zero when using this option.
“Bitpay’s integration with the Lightning Network gives customers more options and gives merchants more ways to pay while leveraging blockchain technology,” said Tony Gallippi, co-founder of Bitpay.
Bitpay claims that the combination of on-chain and off-chain options now provides customers with a better overall payment experience, which is “fast, low-cost and scalable”.
One of BitPay’s first partners for integration is PacSun – a retail clothing brand with more than 400 stores across the US. Michael Relich – PacSoon’s co-CEO – says the integration gives bitcoin holders a quick and cheap option for shopping online with them.
Bitpay merchants will not need to make any changes to start accepting electricity payments from customers. Instead, customers will be able to pay for electricity on their own from Lightning backed wallets.
However, BitPay’s native wallet has not yet enabled the Lightning Network.
Lightning Network adoption
The Lightning Network is often touted as the technology that will allow bitcoin to scale as a global means of exchange. Senator Cynthia Loomis suggested as much in a recent interview, saying it would turn bitcoin from a commodity to a “really fast” currency.
For example, a top Australian baseball team has already integrated the Lightning Network into their daily operations. The company pays athletes and employees in bitcoin and accepts the cryptocurrency as payment for business.
Lightning also powers the Chivo Wallet – El Salvador’s state-sponsored bitcoin wallet that was launched in September alongside the bitcoin legislation. The technology is particularly popular in the region as a tool for transferring remittances from the United States.
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