Customers and merchants who deal with Bitcoin Suisse and its partner Worldline will benefit from the launch of this new second-layer Bitcoin solution, which will enable quick transactions at cheaper blockchain costs for both consumers and merchants. This is a significant advancement in Bitcoin Suisse’s efforts to encourage the widespread acceptance of cryptocurrency technology.
Bitcoin Lightning is a decentralized network based on Bitcoin’s second layer that uses smart contract functionality to create a secure network – allowing small value transactions to be completed at high speeds while eliminating the need for high blockchain fees. Bitcoin Lightning is currently in beta testing.
The Lightning Network will be available to merchants that collaborate with Bitcoin Suisse and Worldline, two of Europe’s leading providers of payment and transactional services. Therefore, consumers and merchants will be able to take advantage of the following advantages when it comes to the application and acceptance of cryptocurrency transactions:
- Lightning-fast transactions measured in milliseconds with instant settlement
- Scalability and increased capacity thanks to the speed of the network
- Competitive blockchain fees independent of network utilization
The cooperation between Bitcoin Suisse and Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services business and the fourth-biggest player in the world, intends to make Bitcoin Suisse the largest cryptocurrency payment processor in Europe:
There are around 1 million merchants and 35 million point-of-sale terminals connected to Worldline, which together produce approximately 5.6 billion card transactions every year.
“Lightning transactions provide increased throughput per second at the cost of a fraction of a penny – making them a game-changing breakthrough for cryptocurrency applications,” said Armin Schmid, Head of Bitcoin Suisse Pay. The use of lightning transactions will therefore be critical in scaling cryptocurrency apps and facilitating their transition to becoming mainstream applications.
“We are thrilled that our crypto solution partner Bitcoin Suisse is offering the lightning network for Bitcoin transactions,” said Sascha Münger, Product Manager at WL Crypto Payments. This is a natural step in the direction of our common objective of making cryptocurrency acceptance readily available to a wide range of retailers.
Because the lightning network allows transactions to be completed quickly and at a cheap cost, it is especially well suited for usage in low value transactions. It also contributes to Worldline’s objective to be a leader in the industry by example in providing technical improvements to increase sustainability by aggregating transactions before they are mined on the blockchain.