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Kraken finally integrates Lightning Network after two years

abdelaziz Fathi

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken has quietly gone live with integration of the Bitcoin Lightning Network (LN), nearly two years after it initially announced it will do so.

The San Francisco-based company has not issued any official notice, but some Kraken users report that the Lightning functionality is already available on the platform. They shared screenshots on Twitter that they are able to use the feature transfer or withdraw Bitcoin in a matter of seconds with much lower fees.


Kraken, one of the oldest exchanges in the market, threw its hat into the ring of Lightning Network, which was introduced earlier in 2018 to solve Bitcoin’s scalability problem, back in 2020. At the time, the popular exchange said it plans to add support for the LN in 2021 as it aims to help users save on commission costs. This implementation has not materialized, however.

Building on Bitcoin’s blockchain technology, the Lightning Network will help Kraken scale to process millions of transactions per second, a leap forward enabling trades to be completed at a lower cost and with greater speed.

Kraken faced regulatory woes in 2021

The Lightning Network was first proposed by Thaddeus Dryja and Joseph Poon to create a layer on top of the original blockchain, in order to increase transaction speed while significantly reducing costs.

In its early days, Lightning developers intentionally added the limitations to protect users from pouring too much money into the nascent network. But the upgraded integration now allows for larger transactions and higher volumes, which helps decrease fees that build up with having to open many small channels.

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