Bitso Selects Lightspark for Lightning Integration

We’re thrilled to announce that Bitso, Latin America's leading financial services company powered by crypto, has chosen Lightspark to bring the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its platform. Bitso has long been a leading innovator in crypto across Latin America and was the first to demonstrate that cryptocurrencies can be used for real use cases such as cross-border payments and remittances. 

Bitso is first integrating Lightspark Connect to enable its customer base of 8 million retail customers and 1,700 enterprise clients to move Bitcoin over Lightning. The company will be using Lightspark’s remote-key signing implementation, with the Lightning signing keys entirely held by Bitso while Lightspark hosts its Lightning Node. 

According to Bitso’s Crypto Landscape in Latam report, 53% of wallets in Latin America are composed of Bitcoin. Additionally, pairs with local currencies (FIAT) in Mexico (BTC-MXN) and Brazil (BTC-BRL) are the most used in the entire region. This integration supports Bitso's existing flow by enabling its customers to receive BTC payments in a near real-time and more affordable way, trade BTC to any FIAT pair, and cash out their money.

This integration allows Bitso to benefit from a scalable, reliable, and fully optimized node infrastructure that provides a deep suite of functionality through a simple and intuitive interface. It will also pave the way for new and innovative payment use cases. This means Bitso’s product, engineering, and operations teams can focus on creating the very best end-to-end experiences for their customers without the distraction that comes from the complexities of managing and optimizing a large-scale Lightning implementation.

We’re delighted to be part of bringing one of Latin America's most influential and innovative companies to Lightning. Bitso’s customers will benefit from instant, cheaper transfers, and this integration will pave the way for more collaboration between our companies in the months and years to come.

"We’re thrilled to partner with Lightspark to bring Lightning to our platform. This advances our mission of making crypto useful by delivering faster, more cost-effective, and transparent money transfers to both our retail and business customers. We’re excited to continue redefining money and the financial system of Latam through magical experiences!” Daniel Vogel, co-founder and CEO, Bitso.

"Bitso shares our vision of building open payments for the Internet. This partnership gets us closer to that goal. We know people across Latin America want this kind of money movement solution, and we’re excited to see this go live with Bitso’s eight million clients.  Working alongside the innovative team at Bitso has been an honor as they continue to demonstrate that cryptocurrencies can solve real-world payment challenges.” David Marcus, co-founder and CEO, Lightspark.

Lightspark builds the best enterprise-grade entry point to the Lightning Network. Our software and services allow innovative and demanding companies to reliably tap into the Lightning Network to enable near real-time, low-cost Bitcoin transactions. We’re delighted to play a role in Bitso's ability to offer open payment solutions to their customers and can’t wait to see this come to fruition.

About Bitso
Bitso is Latin America’s leading Financial Services company powered by crypto, with a community of more than 8 million clients and 1,700 institutional clients. Bitso offers a wide range of products: from a secure and easy-to-use digital platform for earning returns, making international transfers and payments to exchanging and storing a variety of more than 50 cryptocurrencies, as well as crypto-powered products for institutional clients, including crypto-investment and transactions, cross-border payments, among others. Founded in 2014 with over 500 employees in 35 different countries, Bitso is working to make crypto useful by unlocking the power of borderless, secure, easy-to-use financial products. Bitso remains committed to empowering the region by providing universal access to the digital economy of the future and enabling a fairer monetary system. To learn more about Bitso, visit bitso.com #makecryptouseful

About Lightspark
The Internet doesn't have a universal protocol for money, and that's where Lightspark comes in. We're building enterprise-ready infrastructure powered by the Lightning Network for open payments on the Internet. Imagine a low-cost, always-on, universal payment network revolutionizing how money moves. With Lightspark, businesses and developers can enhance existing solutions and create innovative financial systems, services, and processes accessible to everyone, no matter where they are in the world. Lightspark is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. 

Universal Money Addresses (www.uma.me) let anyone send and receive money (fiat and crypto) 24/7 using their favorite UMA-enabled wallet, exchange, or bank. UMA is global and open source.