David Marcus Aims to Revolutionize Global Payments with Bitcoin-Based Startup

David Marcus, well known for being a co-founder of Facebook’s Diem cryptocurrency project, is currently leading a ground-breaking initiative aimed at creating a worldwide payments network using Bitcoin (BTC).

A New Vision for Payments

Marcus, the co-founder and CEO of Lightspark, revealed his Bitcoin-based payments startup’s ambitious aim to provide a global and affordable payment service in a recent interview on CNBC Squawk Box.

Marcus’s plan is to use the Lightning Network, a scaling solution created to make BTC transactions quick and affordable. As with tiny data packets on the internet, he sees Bitcoin as the fundamental layer for value exchange, and the Lightning Network as the channel for quick, inexpensive payments.

“We view Bitcoin not as the currency for everyday purchases but as a fragment on top of Lightning, functioning solely for value exchange. With this setup, you can seamlessly exchange currency at the network’s edges, enabling the transfer of dollars into Japanese yen or euros, for instance. The underlying settlement layer in use is Bitcoin, along with Lightning, ensuring cash finality in real time and at minimal cost,” Marcus explained.

Simplifying Global Payments

Lightspark, Marcus’s firm, aims to provide a payments system that is as simple and obvious to use as sending a text or email. The objective is to develop Bitcoin into a strong, worldwide payment system that surpasses the constraints of conventional cross-border transactions.

He emphasized the need for modernisation by drawing a comparison between the situation of global payments now and the past period of fax machines. With the help of technology like email, texting, and video conversations, communication has progressed without any noticeable hiccups, but cross-border money transfers have not kept up.

Marcus noted, “We have many tourists walking right outside of the studio right now. If you wanted to communicate with them, you could easily ask for an email address and send an email within minutes. You could text them or initiate a group video chat—all these possibilities are at your fingertips. However, if you wanted to send them money, the process remains archaic. We’re still in the fax era of global payments, and that’s what we’re striving to address.”

David Marcus and Lightspark foresee a time where international financial transactions are as simple and accessible as contemporary communication means as they set out on their goal to transform global payments.