Vietnam’s Oldest Bitcoin Exchange Adds Support for Lightning Network

Vietnamese Bitcoin exchange VBTC has integrated the Lightning Network.

In an announcement on Sunday, Vietnam’s oldest (and reportedly only Bitcoin-exclusive) exchange revealed that Lightning Network withdrawals are now open to its users. 

According to an article by BitcoinVN News, the media arm of BitcoinVN, a parent company which also owns VBTC, Lightning Network withdrawals are priced at 1,000 satoshis plus 0.2% of the withdrawn amount. Normal bitcoin withdrawals have a fee of 100,000 satoshis (0.001).

The news comes a few days after the exchange adopted SegWit native batched transactions as well, which will allow it to batch client withdrawals together in SegWit transactions to reduce on-chain fees.

Bitcoin’s Lightning Network meets bitcoin exchanges

VBTC’s adoption makes it one of the first exchanges to go live with the burgeoning technology. It also adds to a growing list of exchanges that have pledged (or launched) support for Lightning this year as the technology continues to spread across the globe to exchanges in various parts of the world.

The Bitfinex and River Financial exchanges came into 2021 with full Lightning Network support, and U.S.-based Kraken Exchange announced at the end of 2020 it would launch support sometime in 2021.

Lightning Labs CEO Elizabeth Stark, whose company designs the leading Lightning Network software implementation, told BitcoinVN News that VBTC’s integration adds more charge to an already electric network effect.

“We believe bitcoin has so much potential for billions of people around the world, and VBTC’s Lightning integration is a big step in bringing it to Asia and beyond,” she said. “As more exchanges join the Lightning Network, more people will be able to transact instantly, across the world, with low fees. Network effects in action.”