Crypto Exchange Binance Finalizes Bitcoin Lightning Network Integration

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of trading volume, today announced it has completed its integration of the Lightning Network, the popular scaling solution running atop the Bitcoin blockchain.

Binance users can now use the Layer-2 scaling solution for Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits, the company said in a Monday announcement. To make use of the new feature, users need to select the “BTC-Lightning” as their network when depositing or withdrawing Bitcoin from the exchange.

The integration comes after Binance confirmed last month that it was in the process of incorporating Lightning nodes into its infrastructure.

The intention to enable Lightning withdrawals was initially disclosed by the exchange in May, following a period of heightened congestion on the Bitcoin network that led Binance to temporarily suspend BTC withdrawals.

During that time, the Bitcoin mempool, which holds pending transactions, had more than 420,000 unconfirmed transactions, surpassing even the levels observed during the bull run of 2021.

The network congestion resulted in a significant increase in average transaction fees for Bitcoin and was largely attributed to the emergence of the BRC-20 token standard created on the Bitcoin Ordinals protocol.

Other major crypto exchanges that have integrated support for the Lightning Network include Kraken, OKX, and Bitfinex, as well the mobile payment platform Cash App.

Multiple addresses

In a separate development, Binance today revealed  it has launched a new feature enabling users to obtain multiple deposit addresses for a single network.

Initially, users can generate multiple deposit addresses only for tokens issued on the Ethereum network (ERC-20) and Ethereum-compatible networks like Arbitrum One or BNB Chain, with more networks to be supported at a later stage.

According to Binance, users may obtain up to 20 deposit addresses for each network. The exchange will periodically review this quota to decide if an increase or decrease on the number of deposit addresses is necessary.

Decrypt has reached out to Binance for comment and will update this article should the exchange respond.