Top global crypto exchange Coinbase has announced its intention to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning network on its platform. The exchange’s CEO Brian Armstrong, in a statement on Tuesday said Coinbase supports the efforts to facilitate payments on Bitcoin through the Lightning Network.
Armstrong’s statement came as a response to a tweet by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, criticizing Coinbase for neglecting the lightning network.
“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.”
The Coinbase CEO further stated that US-based cryptocurrency exchange had onboarded more users to Bitcoin than probably any other company globally.
“Not sure why you think we’re ignoring Bitcoin—we’ve onboarded more people to Bitcoin than probably any company in the world. Let’s build it together,” he said.
The exchange is one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world, with over 100 million users worldwide. It also supports hundreds of crypto assets including Bitcoin, and is known for its beginner-friendly nature.
As you may already know, Bitcoin transactions have a speed and cost problem, making it frustrating to carry out transactions. The lightning network is a layer two network built on Bitcoin that allows users to settle transactions without going through the congested Bitcoin blockchain.
This makes the transactions faster, and cheaper since transactions only go up when there’s network congestion forcing minors to prioritize transactions with higher fees. By integrating the network to its platform, Coinbase will be encouraging the use of Bitcoin significantly.
Lightning network getting popular
The Bitcoin lightning network has become more popular over the years. The technology now has many more users, with close to 70,000 channels opened, and capacity reaching 5,000 BTC. Many top companies have shown interest in the technology, one of which is Microstrategy.
Interestingly, Coinbase isn’t the first crypto exchange to integrate the Bitcoin lightning network. Other top exchanges like Binance, Kraken, and a few others have already integrated the technology on their platforms. It’s no wonder that Dorsey criticized the crypto giant for neglecting the technology.
With a lightning network, Bitcoin transactions can be settled almost instantly every time, unlike in conventional Bitcoin transactions that can take hours for transactions to finalize.
Coinbase challenges
Coinbase has been in court for more than a month now trying to defend itself against allegations of surety laws violation. The exchange has also filed a suit asking the court to dismiss the allegations by the securities and exchange commission (SEC).
Coinbase claims that the SEC scrutinized and approved the exchange to go public in 2021, so it can not claim that it violates security laws now. Similarly, Binance, the top crypto exchange in the world by trading volume is facing allegations from the SEC in court, also on issues of security laws violations.
This may therefore be the wrong time for Coinbase to consider integrating a lightning network, even if it had the intention to do so. However, from Armstrong’s response, the company is already looking at it, so it may integrate it eventually even if it’s not at this moment when it is under pressure from the SEC. Hopefully, proper regulations will get the SEC out ot the way soo.
