Latam Insights: Bukele Announces Self-Financed Budget; Salvadoran Coffee Purchase Settled With Bitcoin

Welcome to Latam Insights, a compendium of Latin America’s most relevant crypto and economic news from the past week. In this issue, President Nayib Bukele announces a zero debt budget, a batch of Salvadoran coffee gets purchased using bitcoin, and Lightspark eyes the region’s markets. Bukele States El Salvador Will Self-Finance 2025 Budget, Won’t Issue … Read more

Lightning Network-Focused Startup Lightspark Sets Its Sights on Latam

Lightspark hopes to enter Latin America’s cryptocurrency market through its partners in the region, including exchanges like Bitso and fintech institutions like Nubank. Nicolas Cabrera, Lightspark’s vice president of product, explained that the company will focus on targeting Latin America’s remittances and cross-border payments market, using its products to streamline these processes. Lightspark Aims to … Read more

Lightspark Presents Solution Linking Lightning Network Payments to Bank Accounts in the U.S.

Lightspark, a Bitcoin Lightning Network financial services company, has announced the release of its UMA Extend feature, which focuses on increasing the interaction between crypto and legacy rails in the U.S. With UMA Extend, businesses can opt in for a direction that can be linked to an account, allowing them to instantly receive LN payments … Read more

Bitso Integrates Lightspark for Bitcoin Lightning Network

Bitso, a leading Latin American cryptocurrency platform, has announced its partnership with Lightspark to incorporate the Bitcoin Lightning Network into its services. This integration aims to enhance the speed and affordability of bitcoin transactions for Bitso’s users. Bitso Adds Lightning Support via Lightspark The integration of Lightspark Connect will allow Bitso‘s 8 million retail customers … Read more

Nubank Partners With Lightspark to Bring Lightning Network Access to Over 100 Million Customers in Latam

Nubank, Latam’s most valuable bank, has partnered with Lightspark, a cryptocurrency-focused financial services company, to bring its customers access to Lightning Network transactions. With this partnership, Nubank expects to lower costs and get more flexibility for users to take advantage of its trading platform, according to Thomaz Fortes, Executive Director for Nubank Crypto. Nubank to … Read more

Lightspark CEO David Marcus: Lightning Network Will Become the World’s ‘Interoperability Neutral Settlement Layer’

David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark, a company that offers lightning network (LN) related services, has stated that LN will become the “interoperability neutral settlement layer” for the world. Marcus declared that only Bitcoin is “neutral enough” to be implemented as the enabler between national payment systems, granting companies and institutions adopting it an edge for … Read more

Coinbase Announces Support for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

Coinbase, a leading U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange, has finally announced the implementation of the lightning network, a Bitcoin layer 2 scaling solution. Coinbase will now allow its users to take advantage of this scaling protocol to avoid paying high fees for Bitcoin transactions, enhancing the utility of crypto for customers using Coinbase’s services. Coinbase Adds Lightning … Read more

Lightspark CEO Expects Bitcoin to Dominate AI-Related Monetary Transactions

David Marcus, the former president of Paypal and the current CEO of Lightspark, envisions bitcoin as the primary currency for artificial intelligence (AI) in the future. He describes bitcoin as “maximally neutral,” highlighting its advantages over conventional fiat currencies like the euro or the U.S. dollar. Bitcoin Poised to Become Default Currency for AI, Says … Read more