OKEx, a cryptocurrency spot and derivatives exchange, today announced the integration of the Bitcoin Lightning Network, a second-layer scaling solution based on the Bitcoin blockchain, in the coming quarter.
This development will decrease transaction fees and times, improving user experience on the exchange.
Lightning Network
Originally proposed by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015 as a Layer 2 scaling solution, the Lightning Network is a decentralized network that uses smart contracts on Bitcoin’s blockchain to facilitate instant payments across the network. An off-chain scalability solution to Bitcoin’s network congestion, the Lightning Network acts as a payment protocol on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, routing payments through participating nodes through a peer-to-peer system that greatly reduces transaction fees and times.
“OKEx is extremely proud to be one of the first major exchanges to integrate the Lightning Network. We are always looking for new ways of decreasing user transaction fees and times. By integrating Layer 2 payment protocols like the Lightning Network, we can offer more competitive products to our users and, at the same time, openly demonstrate our support for the Bitcoin network by increasing the number of participant nodes in the Lightning Network,” commented OKEx CEO Jay Hao.
As BTC adoption becomes increasingly widespread and more users interact with the Bitcoin blockchain, the cost of transactions rises significantly, while transaction speed is greatly reduced. Currently, the average BTC on-chain fee is more than $10 and takes between 10 to 30 minutes to complete, discouraging many users from interacting with the network. Integrating Lightning with the OKEx platform will allow users to send and receive BTC in near real-time at next-to-no cost.
“OKEx’s Lightning integration marks a big step for its users and the bitcoin community as a whole, enabling instant, global, low fee transactions. OKEx’s leadership in adopting Lightning will help bring bitcoin to the next billion people around the world,” said Elizabeth Stark, CEO, and Co-Founder at Lightning Labs.
