Lightning Labs: Preparing to be Bitcoin’s First Visa

Lightning Labs just raised $10 million with major investors to enhance the potential of bitcoin to become a global currency. Managing Director Brian Murray believes its proposed paid service can become similar to Visa’s business model.

According to Murray, Lightning can bring more speed and fee efficiency to the fiat currency network.

The firm released a beta version of the scaling solution LND two years ago. The project raised $2.5 million in a seed round from public figures like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

Lightning Labs also launched a mobile wallet app in June 2019 and an ongoing paid service called Lightning Loop.

Loop aims to help merchants manage payment channels more efficiently. Clients need to have Bitcoin to keep them open, which inevitably becomes a problem for investors without balanced in-and-out flow.

CEO Elizabeth Stark explained Loop in its exclusive terms in and out.

As an effort, people put funds into their channel, like prepaid debit. Out, the offering’s most popular product, allows traders to receive funds on Lightning.

The service charges a small percentage of each full loop. Moreover, it aims to help merchants and exchanges maintain liquidity within its channels.

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Stark said the new startup will focus on options for larger Bitcoin payment channels this year. Opt-in channels will each hold more than $1,500.

The “Visa” will also allow Atomic Multi-Path Payments, which break payments into smaller parts. This allows the wallet owners to return the whole amount if the small parts don’t arrive at the same recipient.

Lightning Labs and ACINQ are the only two labs focused on the development of a similar wallet. River Financial CEO Alexander Leishman said their startups could improve Bitcoin experiences for its users.

Stark said her goal for Lightning Labs was to enable automated services. Furthermore, this gives networks enough room to work even without clients needing to tinker with it.

Investor Jill Carlson of Slow Ventures said the company is building channels for bitcoin to fulfill its promise. Bitcoin’s main goal is to become a medium of exchange, a means of micropayment, a remittance infrastructure, and more.