Zug, November 10, 2021 – Bitcoin Suisse, the leading Switzerland-based crypto-financial services company, is today announcing the availability of Bitcoin Lightning technology for its crypto payment solution. Bitcoin Suisse has thus become the first crypto payment processor in Switzerland to offer Bitcoin Lightning – reaffirming its position as a first mover in the crypto space. The introduction of this innovative second-layer Bitcoin solution will introduce instant transactions at lower blockchain fees for consumers as well as merchants working with Bitcoin Suisse and its partner Worldline. It also marks a major step forward in Bitcoin Suisse’s efforts to promote the broader adoption of crypto technology.

Bitcoin Lightning is a decentralized network based on Bitcoin’s second layer that uses smart contract functionality to create a secure network – allowing small value transactions at high speeds, eliminating high blockchain fees. From today, merchants working with Bitcoin Suisse and Worldline – the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry – will be able to accept transactions made via the Lightning Network. As a result, consumers and merchants can enjoy the following benefits in the application and acceptance of crypto transactions:

• Lightning-fast transactions measured in milliseconds with instant settlement
• Scalability and increased capacity thanks to the speed of the network
• Competitive blockchain fees independent of network utilization

Through its partnership with Worldline, the European leader in the payments and transactional services industry and #4 player worldwide, Bitcoin Suisse aims to become the largest crypto payment processor in Europe: Worldline has access to around 1 million merchants and 35 million point-of-sale terminals, which generate a total of around 5.6 billion card transactions per year.

Armin Schmid, Head Bitcoin Suisse Pay, stated: “Lightning transactions enable higher throughput per second at the price of a fraction of a cent – making them a game-changing innovation for crypto applications. Lightning transactions will thus play a vital role in scaling crypto applications and driving their transition to a mainstream application.”

Sascha Münger, Product Manager WL Crypto Payments, stated: “We are pleased that our crypto solution partner Bitcoin Suisse is introducing the lightning network for Bitcoin transactions. This is a logical step towards our shared vision of making crypto acceptance easily accessible to a broad group of merchants. The lightning network enables fast and cost-efficient transactions and hence lends itself particularly well to be used for low value transactions. Moreover, by aggregating transactions before getting mined on the blockchain, it significantly reduces energy costs per transaction and thereby supports Worldline’s ambition to lead the industry by example in introducing technological innovations to improve sustainability.”

Niklas Nikolajsen, Founder and Chairman of Bitcoin Suisse, said: “Second layer solutions like Lightning add important use cases to on-chain transactions and are crucial to scaling blockchain solutions. We will look into adding lightning support to additional services we provide at Bitcoin Suisse. We expect that other crypto financial institutions will offer this innovative technology to drive crypto adoption further beyond.”

Learn more about crypto payments from Bitcoin Suisse powered by Bitcoin Lightning here.