Litecoin [LTC] moves towards Lightning Network with Casa LN Node support: Onramp to Bitcoin [BTC] LN?

Litecoin [LTC] recently made a move towards greater integration on the Lightning Network, with support slated to be added on the Casa Lightning Node later this year. The Casa Node is an all-in-one solution to run a node on the Lightning Network to send and receive payments transferred through the network.

Bitcoin [BTC]’s Lightning Network is a layer-2 solution built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, which allows opening payment channels between two nodes on the network. The transactions that occurred in the channel would be updated to the main blockchain of Bitcoin upon the closing of the channel. This theoretically allows for faster payments and increases transaction throughput.

The Lightning Node device was created by the same individuals who were behind Lightning Ramp, a solution to connect exchanges to the Lightning Network to allow for trustless and fast payments. The device can send and receive payments on the Bitcoin Lightning Network and open and close custom channels.

Charlie Lee, the Managing Director of Litecoin Foundation, recently reached out on Twitter to the Casa team to inquire about the status of Litecoin support on the product. He stated:

“In the future, network routers will come with Lightning Network built in. It will route your data AND payments. It can also earn some money for you from LN transaction fees and maybe even atomic swap fees. @CasaHODL’s product is a first step towards that. But, when Litecoin?

They replied that they would be adding support during the earlier part of the 4th quarter of this year. In reply, Lee stated:

“TBH, I didn’t expect @CasaHODL to be working on supporting LTC so soon. But it’s responses like these that show it was the right decision to have Litecoin complement and not compete with Bitcoin. And when companies see the value-add of LTC, it’s extremely easy to add LTC support.”

According to Lee, this opens up the possibility for Litecoin to become an onramp into the Bitcoin Lightning Network. This can be achieved through atomic swaps, where two coins are swapped for each other across blockchains.

Moreover, there exists a variation of atomic swaps known as submarine swaps. Pioneered by Alex Bosworth, the program allows users to make transactions between Lightning Network addresses and on-chain addresses and includes support for the Litecoin Mainnet as well. What this means is that users can enter the Lightning Network through Litecoin and submarine swap to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network addresses. Charlie Lee had stated earlier this year:

“Litecoin will also be the easiest onramp onto the Lightning Network. BTC takes too long and fees to high? No problem. Open an LTC payment channel on chain cheaply and quickly, then atomically swap for BTC if/when you need to. This can be done in one step using submarine swaps!”