With the help of Bitcoin’s Lightning, people in Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana may now instantly receive inexpensive local currency remittances from the EU and the UK.
In a statement released on Monday, bitcoin app CoinCorner announced that it had made Send Globally available to its EU and U.K. users. This feature enables foreign users to send money to Africa quickly and affordably.
The achievement is made possible via a collaboration with the African Bitcoin app Bitnob, which follows a similar collaboration with the Lightning payments software Strike.
With the use of the Lightning Network, a peer-to-peer currency’s overlay protocol for quick and inexpensive payments, Bitnob connects local residents with those in the U.S., EU, and U.K.
According to Bernard Parah, CEO of Bitnob, “this is another step toward the economic emancipation of Africans.” According to the World Bank, transferring $200 to Sub-Saharan Africa costs an average of 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020, making it the region with the highest transaction costs. The future of money is being powered by Bitcoin, and this collaboration shows a compelling use case for that future.
Send Globally functions by using the local Bitcoin apps as the on- and off-ramps for currency. Strike or CoinCorner first converts U.S. dollars, euros, or British pounds into bitcoin. The BTC is subsequently delivered to Bitnob via Lightning. The receiving user then receives the corresponding amount in local currency from the African app. Despite all of these stages, the procedure is inexpensive and almost immediate because of Lightning’s quickness and effectiveness.
“The borderless nature of Bitcoin has always made it a great tool for sending money around the world, but now with the Lightning Network, sending Bitcoin is instant and very low cost,” said Danny Scott, CoinCorner CEO, in a statement. “By partnering with Bitnob to provide a seamless cross-border experience using Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, we hope to remove some of the friction and cost that customers experience when using traditional FX and money remittance companies.”
