Popular mobile payment service Cash App has integrated the Bitcoin (BTC) Lightning Network as a part of an update, allowing faster and cheaper BTC transfers using the Layer 2 (L2) payment protocol. Cash App is developed and owned by Block (formerly Square), a fintech firm co-founded by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The announcement of the BTC L2 integration was shared as a notification on the official Cash App application, which made its way through to Crypto Twitter: The news are real! @CashApp added #Bitcoin Lightning ⚡️Network pic.twitter.com/zbbdqcx0dC — Yegor Petrov ⚡️ (@yeg0rpetrov) January 11, 2022 The Bitcoin Lightning Network …

The Stacks ecosystem is a collection of independent entities, developers and community members working to build a user-owned internet on the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain. Stacks’ STX cryptocurrency was distributed to the general public through the first-ever Securities and Exchange Commission-qualified token offering in the United States. Mitchell Cuevas, head of growth for the Stacks Foundation, held an exclusive ask-me-anything, or AMA, session with Cointelegraph Markets Pro users on Dec. 2. During the session, he discussed the Stacks blockchain’s technological capabilities, future growth and major developments. Cointelegraph Markets Pro User: PoW [proof-of-work] blockchains are known to be the most secure. Does …

The crypto arm of the recently rebranded Square (now Block) has demonstrated its Lightning Development Kit (LDK) as it aims to turbocharge the Bitcoin network. The team from Jack Dorsey’s Spiral published a video on Dec. 7 showcasing the capabilities of Bitcoin Lightning and the Lightning Development Kit (LDK). LDK has been designed to allow developers to seamlessly plug their applications into the network on mobile devices and Point of Sale terminals. LDK supports native APIs using Rust, C, Swift, Java, and Kotlin coding languages. This lets developers customize their wallet app for their users in the language of their …

Aarika Rhodes, a Democrat running to represent California's 30th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, has begun to accept campaign contributions in Bitcoin using the Lightning Network. In a Tuesday message to her more than 21,000 Twitter followers, Rhodes said her campaign website had started using Lighting for campaign contributions in addition to the BitPay options for Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). According to the congressional candidate, the move was aimed at making her campaign more accessible for voters, who will consider Rhodes in California’s primary election in June 2022 and potentially the general election later that …

Australian baseball club Perth Heat has announced a partnership with Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode to accept and make payments in Bitcoin (BTC). The partnership allows Perth Heat to pay professional players and staff in Bitcoin. According to the announcement, the professional sports club will send and receive payments in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network. In addition, the partnership with OpenNode allows the Perth Heat organization to accept Bitcoin payments for sponsorships, merchandise and other revenue streams. Taking things a step further, Perth Heat has also rebranded itself to be called “the Bitcoin baseball team.” The club has also listed Bitcoin-branded …

Synonym Software Ltd., a company founded by stablecoin issuer Tether Holdings Limited, officially launched on Tuesday, setting in motion a highly ambitious project to bring Bitcoin (BTC) transactions mainstream through an independent financial platform that utilizes the Lightning Network. Synonym’s stated goal is to enable self-ownership and control of crypto assets by creating an open financial ecosystem that utilizes Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, the company announced Tuesday. CEO John Carvalho said “Hyperbitcoinization won’t magically happen on its own. In order to live in a world without big banks, oppressive regulations, or Big Tech presiding over our lives, we need …

Bitcoin is set to undergo a major network upgrade, Taproot, in nearly two days, i.e., on Nov. 14 or 255 blocks later, as per data from Taproot.watch. This is the first significant upgrade since the Segregated Witness (SegWit), which eventually culminated in the development and launch of the Lightning Network in 2018. The original Taproot proposal was made by Bitcoin core contributor and former Blockstream chief training officer Gregory Maxwell on Jan 23, 2018. While the previous SegWit upgrade was aimed to resolve transaction malleability and improve the scalability of the Bitcoin network, the Taproot upgrade is targeted to improve …

Bitcoin Suisse will use the Lightning Network to make Bitcoin (BTC) transactions both cheaper and faster. It will be the first cryptocurrency payment processor in Switzerland to integrate the technology, according to a press release dated Tuesday. Armin Schmid, head of Bitcoin Suisse Pay, praised the decision, noting that Lightning transactions will play a significant role in scaling crypto apps and driving mass adoption. “Lightning transactions enable higher throughput per second at the price of a fraction of a cent — making them a game-changing innovation for crypto applications.” With the launch of this cutting-edge second-layer Bitcoin technology, consumers and …

Real-world use cases are one of the main adoption drivers for every crypto ecosystem, which also holds true for the Bitcoin (BTC) network. In the next seven days, the Bitcoin protocol will undergo a soft fork in the name of Taproot upgrade, which aims to improve the network’s privacy, efficiency and smart contracts capability. Taproot is Bitcoin’s first major upgrade since August 2017, which saw the introduction of Segregated Witness (SegWit) and resulted in the launch of Lightning Network. While the previous fork primarily sought to fix transaction malleability and improve Bitcoin’s network scalability, the Taproot upgrade aims to revamp …

The research unit of Arcane Crypto predicts the Lightning Network will go parabolic as adoption of the Bitcoin (BTC) layer-two payment protocol ramps up over the decade. Arcane Research published the “State of Lightning” report on Tuesday and analyzed the Lightning Network in terms of current capacity, wallet payment volume, the growing rate of adoption, and the switch from online services to everyday usage. The report provides ambitious estimates for the future of the Lighting Network, such as 90% of Salvadorans over the age of 15 having access to Lightning payments by 2026, and 50 million Lightning users, representing $17 …

Twitter has unveiled an in-development tool that will enable users to display a verified nonfungible token (NFT) as their profile picture. Mada Aflak, a senior software engineer at Twitter, shared a video demonstrating functionality that allows users to add NFTs to their accounts. Users can simply edit their profile, connect a cryptocurrency wallet, and import their OpenSea collection. Then, they can choose an avatar from their collection of NFT digital art. The profile picture will also be marked with a badge to verify that the image is the genuine article, thereby allowing users to flex their hugely expensive CryptoPunk or …

The node count for Bitcoin’s leading layer-two solution, the Lightning Network (LN), has spiked to record levels following a surge of adoption. According to on-chain analytics provider Glassnode’s Monday “Week On-chain” report, the number of Lightning Network nodes increased by 160% during September to tag a record high of 15,600. At the end of August, just 6,000 LN nodes were live. The number of channels, or connections between different nodes, on the LN has also hit a peak of 73,000, representing an average of 4.6 channels per node, the report added. Bitcoin Visuals is currently reporting an average of 9.3 …