Crypto Exchange Kraken Working to Add Lightning Network Support Later This Year

Popular cryptocurrency exchange Kraken is working on adding support for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network later this year, according to the firm’s Bitcoin strategist Pierre Rochard.

Responding to a user on Twitter asking the firm for a clear timeline on its plans to add support for the layer-two scaling solution, Rochard confidently responded it’s working on adding it later this year.

This year, 2020, fire me if it doesn’t happen.

— Pierre Rochard (@pierre_rochard) May 28, 2020

Rochard later on retweet a user’s question on what the milestone would be for the Lightning network to be considered “ready,” which implies Kraken – and potentially other cryptoassets trading platforms – have been holding off adding support until the network becomes more stable.

Bitcoin Lightning Network was launched in early 2018 and quickly started being adopted right after, By May 2019, a total of 1,039 BTC were locked on the scaling solution, but the number of bitcoins users were moving off-chain started dropping soon after.

Source: DeFi Pulse

Several cryptocurrency exchanges have, however, already rolled out support for the Lightning Network. Bitcoin-to-gold exchange Vaultoro added support for it in May 2018, while South American crypto exchange Buda added them in October 2018.

While several other cryptoassets exchanges have since added support for the Lightning Network as well, the oldest cryptocurrency trading platform that added support was Bitfinex. Kraken would be one of the oldest exchanges supporting it as well.

The Lightning Network is supported by various Bitcoin community members as the cryptocurrency’s best scaling solution, as it takes payments off-chain. Another prominent scaling solution, now widely supported by Bitcoin Cash proponents, is to increase the block sizes on the network.

Featured image by Josep Castells on Unsplash