Leading Latin American crypto exchange Bitso has partnered with Lightspark to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network onto its platform. This will introduce faster, cheaper Bitcoin transactions to Bitso’s user base of over 8 million retail clients and 1,700 institutional customers.

Bitso will leverage Lightspark’s infrastructure to enable Lightning transfers. Lightspark will host the nodes while Bitso retains control of the private keys in a remote signing setup.

The integration comes as Lightning Network adoption spreads globally, making payments with Bitcoin faster, smoother and less expensive.

According to Bitso’s research, 53% of crypto wallets in Latin America hold Bitcoin. Trading pairs against local fiat currencies are also widely used. Thus, Lightning is a natural fit to upgrade Bitso’s existing infrastructure.

Daniel Vogel, co-founder and CEO of Bitso, said, “We’re thrilled to partner with Lightspark to bring Lightning to our platform. This advances our mission of making crypto useful by delivering faster, more cost-effective, and transparent money transfers.”

With Lightning, Bitso can offer near-instant Bitcoin transactions at a fraction of the cost of regular on-chain Bitcoin payments. This unlocks new potential payment and remittance solutions for both retail and enterprise clients.

Lightspark CEO David Marcus said Bitso “shares our vision of building open payments for the Internet. This gets us closer to that goal. We know people across Latin America want this solution.”

As a pioneering Latin American exchange with millions of users, Bitso’s integration of Lightning is a milestone in increasing Bitcoin adoption.