Brazil’s neobank Nubank has formed a partnership with the payments platform Lightspark to introduce the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its 100 million customers across Latin America. On June 25, Lightspark announced that it is collaborating with Nubank to kick off the Lightning “integration, mapping, and building potential products,” with more details to come in the future.
In addition to this, Lightspark will incorporate the Universal Money Address standard, a payment system developed on top of Lightning that provides users with an email-like address for money transfers.
The integration is part of Nubank’s initiative to provide faster and more cost-effective transfers through blockchain technology, as stated by Thomaz Fortes, the executive director of Nubank Cripto.
Lightspark, established in 2022 by former PayPal president David Marcus, has been constructing Lightning Network infrastructure for various enterprises. The company views the Nubank integration as a “significant milestone” for the Lightning Network, which is expected to have a substantial impact on overall network usage when it is most crucial.
Nubank, backed by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway, offers the trading of 14 cryptocurrencies and recently partnered with stablecoin issuer Circle to expand access to its USD Coin (USDC) in November. Furthermore, the neobank introduced its crypto services in May 2022 and pledged to allocate 1% of its net assets to Bitcoin.
The majority of Nubank’s 100 million customers are based in Brazil, with the remaining 8 million primarily located in Mexico and Colombia. According to Kaiko Research data, most cryptocurrency trading volume occurs in Brazilian real trading pairs, followed by the Mexican, Argentinian, and Colombian pesos.
In a related development, the article “Get Bitcoin or die tryin’: Why hip hop stars love crypto” examines the growing affinity of hip hop stars for cryptocurrency.