After users accused Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong of neglecting Lightning Network, the Coinbase CEO mentioned on Twitter that the exchange will be integrating the network. He however did not state when the integration will happen, according to a Hackernoon article.
Coinbase is one of the biggest crypto exchanges in the world by trading volume, and it is the biggest in the U.S. Being also the first crypto exchange to go public, Coinbase has made the crypto space proud, but has not had much to do with the Bitcoin Lightning network. The integration however could be good news for the space as many more people will be exposed to the network.
About Lightning Network
The Bitcoin network has over the years become slower due to its small block size, making it to get cluttered with transactions easily. The developers then came up with the idea of a layer 2 scaling solution that will take traffic off the blockchain, but still give transactions the same level of security that the blockchain provides.
Several years down the line and with constant improvements, the lightning network is finally gaining traction and now has a capacity of over 5,000 BTC. There are also almost 75,000 channels open, and over 16,000 nodes on the network. These numbers show that more people are using the network, which makes it a surprise that top exchanges like Coinbase haven’t integrated the technology yet.
Indeed, the most recently development is that the network will be able to support altcoin transactions soon, starting with stablecoins such as Tether USDT. The idea is to maintain the speed of altcoin transactions while conferring upon them the trustlessness that makes the Bitcoin network highly secure.
It is expected that the network will also be able to support decentralized exchanges, bringing some much needed security to the DeFi space as well. This means it is only a matter of time before centralized exchanges like Coinbase also integrate the technology to make Bitcoin transactions faster, and altcoin transactions more secure.
What Coinbase Integration Means to Crypto
Coinbase is a crypto giant, and its adoption of lightning network will no doubt make the technology more attractive to the wider crypto community. Evidently, some users of the exchange are already looking forward to using the technology which is a good thing.
The final integration will only bring it closer to those who don’t know about it yet or haven’t considered using it before. With faster and more secure crypto transactions, we may be looking at a great encouragement for new users to enter the crypto space with confidence and learn to use the technology to their advantage.
This is a development the crypto space desperately needs both to redeem its image and to sell itself to the mainstream investors.