Nubank brings Bitcoin Lightning to its 100M Latin American customers

Brazilian neobank Nubank has partnered with payments platform Lightspark to offer the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its 100 million customers in Latin America.

Lightspark said on June 25 that it’s working with Nubank to start the Lightning “integration, mapping, and building potential products” and would have “more to share in the future.”

Lightspark will also integrate the Universal Money Address standard — a payment system built on top of Lightning that gives users an email-like address to transfer money.

The integration is part of the neobank’s plan to offer higher-speed, low-cost transfers via blockchain, Nubank Cripto’s executive director Thomaz Fortes said in a statement.

Lightspark has been building Lightning Network infrastructure for enterprises since it was co-launched in 2022 by former PayPal president David Marcus.

Lightspark said the Nubank integration was a “significant milestone” for the Lightning Network as it would “dramatically impact overall network usage at a time when it’s most needed.”

Nubank is backed by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway and allows the trading of 14 cryptocurrencies. It partnered with stablecoin issuer Circle to expand access to its USD Coin (USDC) in November.

Its crypto services were rolled out in May 2022 alongside it announcing it would allocate 1% of its net assets to Bitcoin.

Around 92 million of Nubank’s customers are based in Brazil, with the remaining 8 million mostly based in Mexico and Colombia.

Most cryptocurrency trading volume is facilitated in Brazilian real trading pairs, followed by the Mexican, Argentinian and Colombian pesos, Kaiko Research data shows.

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