The developer behind Bitcoin’s Lightning Network has examined a protocol designed to allow stablecoins to be issued on the Bitcoin blockchain, its CEO mentioned.
Talking on the Monetary Occasions Crypto and Digital Assets Summit this week, Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark mentioned that the developer had lately executed a take a look at transaction on the Lightning Community with an asset created utilizing the Taproot Assets protocol.
“We have launched an early a part of the code in October, and really simply on this previous Thursday, demoed the first-ever transaction on Lightning of an asset,” Stark mentioned. “The thought is to have crypto {dollars} and stablecoins” on the Bitcoin blockchain, she defined.
“I actually care deeply about fixing actual issues for actual individuals, versus meme cash or playing,” Stark mentioned, including that the power to place stablecoins and different belongings atop Bitcoin will “facilitate new use circumstances and convey extra individuals on to the web of cash and digital belongings.”
Stark additionally highlighted a post-halving wave of developer curiosity in Bitcoin, with “many builders coming again” to the blockchain. She pointed to builders constructing out decentralized finance (DeFi) on Bitcoin, in addition to tasks comparable to bitVM, which allows builders to construct Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts.
Eliminating the “concept of cross border”
Lightning Labs’ know-how is designed “to remove the thought of cross border and simply allow individuals to transact globally,” Stark mentioned.
“The idea of a cross-border fee is one thing that we hear about rather a lot,” she added, earlier than questioning “Why ought to we even name it ‘cross border’ anymore? We do not have cross-border emails, we do not have cross-border textual content messages.”
“I haven’t got to pay any charges to ship a picture to a good friend internationally—worth on the web, and cash, ought to operate the identical,” she continued.
Stark pointed to a recent IMF report which discovered that Bitcoin “has grow to be an more and more essential channel to ship remittances and evade capital controls in rising markets.”
That discovering, she mentioned, was “in no way stunning to these of us who’re on the bottom who’re working with builders and communities in these locations.” In markets topic to hyperinflation and authoritarian regimes, she mentioned, “Bitcoin turns into an asset and a way of transacting after they do not produce other choices.”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
