Binance and Coinbase silent on Bitcoin Lightning: Community tries to understand why
Categories: Crypto News US
The Bitcoin Lightning Network integration started to take off among the cryptocurrency exchanges worldwide. However, some of the world’s largest crypto trading platforms seemingly are not in the hurry to integrate the protocol. Last week, Robinhood crypto trading app became the latest major industry player to announce the Lightning integration, following in the footsteps of Bit Pay and the Kraken crypto exchange.
As the main goal of the Lightning integration is to reduce the cost of Bitcoin (BTC) transactions and accelerate the network transfers, one may wonder what cryptocurrency exchanges have still not added the Lightning support.
Binance, Coinbase and FTX stay silent on Lightning
Not everyone is happy with the pace of Bitcoin LN adoption. David Coen, a software quality assurance tester and crypto enthusiast, is disappointed at the lack of progress for the Lightning Network integration among major crypto exchanges. He compiled data from official sources, social media presences and Lightning explorers like 1ML and Amboss, only to find out that Binance, Coinbase and the major South Korean crypto exchange Bithumb are not in the list of “Lightning exchanges.”
FTX — which is not mentioned in Coen’s list — has refused to comment as well. In January last year, FTX said that it “probably pays more in transaction fees than any other single entity in the world” on its official Twitter account.
There are apparently a wide number of possible reasons why some of the world’s largest crypto exchanges have not added the Lightning support so far.According to Coen, the Lightning implementation could be simply not a priority for some major crypto exchanges, or even against their business plans for others.
Some major crypto exchanges prioritize industry trends like NFTs over the Lightning Network
The Lightning enthusiast also doesn’t expect other exchanges like Coinbase to integrate Lightning support in the near future “since the priority seems to be to integrate as many altcoins as possible and follow the trends of the market,” he said. Coen added that nonfungible token (NFT) support appears to be more a priority for Coinbase over Lightning, citing the company’s NFT initiative released officially last year. The expert’s remarks echoed some similar comments in the community.
Lightning is becoming less cutting edge and more of a necessity
According to some community members, Lightning is still a cutting-edge development today, which makes large crypto exchanges take significant time and effort to make such improvements.