Coinbase Integrates Bitcoin Lightning for 100 Million Users

Bitcoin and crypto exchange Coinbase has integrated Bitcoin's Lightning Network, enabling faster and cheaper BTC transactions for its users in the United States (with the exception of New York). 

As the largest Bitcoin exchange globally by users, trading volume, and custody of assets, Coinbase's adoption of Lightning is a major win for the Bitcoin scaling solution. Lightning allows near-instant Bitcoin payments with significantly lower fees by moving transactions off-chain.

Coinbase has been working to implement Lightning support for years to further its mission of building a payments network costing pennies per transaction. This integration finally unlocks the power of instant and affordable Bitcoin payments for the exchange's massive US user base.

By partnering with Lightning infrastructure provider Lightspark, co-founded by former PayPal executive David Marcus, Coinbase now gives users the option to withdraw or send Bitcoin via Lightning. 

Transactions process in seconds and cost a fraction of on-chain BTC payments.

Marcus celebrated the milestone, stating "We're so thrilled to be part of this journey with you to bring Lightning to 100s of millions of people in over 100 countries. Big milestone for the entire network and for Bitcoin."

The Bitcoin community has long awaited Lightning integration from Coinbase, one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. 

While the Lightning Network has seen impressive growth over recent years, Coinbase's integration marks the protocol's biggest leap towards broader adoption yet, expanding the network to millions of new users.

Coinbase's adoption signals faith in the network's maturity and highlights the promise of Layer 2 scaling for helping Bitcoin evolve into a global payment rail.