Popular retail trading platform Robinhood says it will be utilizing Bitcoin’s Lightning Network in its rollout of over two million crypto wallets.
In a blog post, Robinhood backs up chief product officer Aparna Chennapragada’s Miami Bitcoin conference announcement that the platform will enable users to send and receive any of its available cryptocurrencies using its new Wallets service.
“With Wallets, customers will have full access to their crypto, and can use it to participate in the crypto ecosystem—by tipping on social media, paying for NFTs [non-fungible tokens] and more. Unlike some other crypto platforms, there is no fee to withdraw crypto from Robinhood.”
According to the announcement, the service will include features like the ability to scan QR codes to send funds, see the estimated dollar value of a transfer, and monitor transfer activity from within the settings of the Robinhood app to get the latest information and updates.
For cheaper and faster Bitcoin (BTC) transactions, Robinhood will give support to Blockstream’s Lightning Network, the leading sidechain for Bitcoin.
“Because these transactions occur ‘off-chain,’ Lightning network transactions occur in a matter of seconds vs. minutes and for pennies vs. dollars, saving customers time and money. Network fees will vary based on demand in the Bitcoin network.
What’s more, Lightning Network Bitcoin transfers reduce the carbon footprint of the transaction as Bitcoin miners are not needed to validate.”
The company said it will be giving more updates on the service in the coming months.
