Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by volume traded, has announced it has completed the integration of the Lightning Network, a BTC scaling layer, on its platform. Now users can execute bitcoin deposits and withdrawals using the network, taking advantage of lower fees.
Binance Completes Integration of Lightning Network
Binance recently announced the completion of its integration of Lightning Network, a scaling layer for the Bitcoin blockchain. The exchange informed about these new capabilities on July 17, explaining that users can now deposit and withdraw bitcoin from Binance using this new option.
The Lightning Network allows users to accelerate the speed of their transactions to and from the exchange, given that there is no need for waiting for transactions as when using Bitcoin in its base layer. Also, the fees for Lightning Network transactions are cheaper than Layer 1-based transactions. This difference is especially notable in times of high congestion on the BTC base layer.
For deposits, the exchange accepts transactions starting from 0.00001 BTC ($0.30) and up to 0.05 BTC ($1,510). To withdraw BTC, Binance will collect a network fee of 0.000002 BTC, or less than ten cents per transaction.
A Lightning Journey
Binance announced it was working on including Lightning Network capabilities on its platform in May when the exchange had to pause BTC withdrawals in a period of network congestion created by the appearance of the BTC-based protocol known as Ordinals, which allows users to inscribe arbitrary data on the BTC blockchain.
Addressing this situation, Binance stated:
To prevent a similar recurrence in the future, our fees have been adjusted. We will continue to monitor on-chain activity and adjust accordingly if needed. Our team has also been working on enabling BTC Lightning Network withdrawals, which will help in such situations.
In June, Binance confirmed it was still working on the integration after some users noticed the existence of Lightning nodes associated with the exchange. However, Binance warned there was “still more tech work to be done,” promising to offer updates when the integration tasks were finished.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO Of Binance, had stated before that the implementation of the Lightning Network was “more complicated” than it might appear due to the on-demand generation of invoices featured by the Lightning Network, which is different from having pre-generated addresses.
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