David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark and co-creator of Diem, Meta’s failed cryptocurrency project, explained his intentions of turning Bitcoin into a global payments network. Marcus explained that there was no universal protocol for sending value over the internet and that we were still in the “fax era” of global payments.
Lightspark CEO David Marcus Wants to Get Payments out of the ‘Fax Era’
David Marcus, CEO of Lightspark and co-creator of the defunct Diem cryptocurrency project, has talked about how Bitcoin might become a global payments network. In an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Marcus detailed the need for a universal platform to allow money transfers to be as easy as text or video communication using today’s messaging apps.
When consulted about the need for a global payment system, Marcus stated that we are still in the “fax era” of payments, with no universal way of transacting money from one place to another without using common fintech apps in a fragmented market.
Lightspark, Marcus’s new startup, focuses on implementing solutions for enterprises using the Lightning Network, an expansion layer for Bitcoin, to streamline and accelerate the payment experience on top of Bitcoin. Lightspark has partnered with several companies, including Xapo Bank, Rain, Flexa, Chainalysis, Notabene, and TRM Labs.
Marcus believes the size of the payment business is “ginormous,” with a potential market of trillions of dollars that currently move through legacy bank-dependent cross-border payment systems like SWIFT.
Marcus: Bitcoin Will Not Be the Currency ‘People Will Use to Buy Things’
Marcus also stressed that, according to his vision, bitcoin will not be the currency used to make payments in the future due to its anticipated growth in price. On the contrary, Bitcoin will serve as a platform to empower the exchange of value using other fiat currencies.
On how this will be achieved, Marcus declared:
A fragment of a bitcoin on top of Lightning is like a small data packer on the internet only for value. And so, you can exchange at the edges of the network and send dollars to someone who will receive Japanese yen on the other side.
He further explained that this use case could be sustained using Bitcoin alongside Lightning Network, with transactions settling in real-time at “very, very low costs.”
What do you think about David Marcus’ intentions of using Lightning Network to make Bitcoin a universal settlement layer? Tell us in the comments section below.
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