Litecoin Lightning payments now accepted by over 4,500 merchants around the world

Litecoin has been taking huge strides this year with multiple deals and brand promotions with huge organizations. The coin even announced recently that Litecoin Foundation had approached Beam about a partnership to implement Mimblewimble via Extension Blocks on Litecoin.

The virtual currency did not stop with the announcement alone, however. Litecoin has announced that Coingate, one of the largest cryptocurrency payment gateways which handles transactions for over 4,500 online merchants, had been exploring integrating Lightning Network payments on its platform. The initial test period with merchant partner SurfShark, a VPN provider, has been officially completed and Coingate has finally enabled Litecoin Lightning Network support to all their merchant partners, allowing customers to conduct instant payments with significant cheaper fees.

The payments gateway platform was established in 2014 and is based in Vilnius, Lithuania. The payment gateway has enabled various businesses to accept Bitcoin and Altcoin payments. The company offers payouts either in BTC or in EUR/USD, eliminating any risk associated with Bitcoin price volatility. Users can also buy BTC from CoinGate using bank transfer, credit and debit cards, and mobile balance [phone credit], or sell their BTC to CoinGate.

Coingate integrated the Bitcoin Lightning network last year. Bitcoin as a cryptocurrency has existed in the market for 10 years, however, the lightning network is still in a phase of infancy. Coingate had then expressed their elation at the uptake in adoption, stating:

“Since the launch, we saw over 30,000 created orders to pay with Lightning which suffice as a strong sign that both our customers and the crypto community have a keen interest in this development. Seeing the huge potential it has, we decided to keep developing the feature, but this time, for Litecoin.”

The Litecoin Lightning Network has continued to slowly develop and according to reports published on 1ML.com, the network had almost 1,000 active channels, a 150% increase along with a 200%+ capacity increase, in part due to the recent 30% price rise of Litecoin.

According to CoinGate, they are looking to integrate atomic swaps between the Bitcoin and Litecoin Networks, a technology that would allow trustless trading of assets.