Payment processing company CoinGate teamed up with a privacy service provider Surfshark for a pilot project of the long-anticipated Litecoin Lightning Network (LN) solution. Surfshark is the first company in the world to accept Litecoin payments via the Lightning Network during the test phase, which begins on 17 January 2019.
The partnership between Surfshark and CoinGate in implementing LN payment solution for Litecoin transactions is an important milestone for the whole community of cryptocurrency advocates. It proves that, despite the complicated nature of blockchain architecture, exchange of cryptocurrencies between peers can be instant and seamless.
“The core premise of Surfshark is the privacy of our users. Most privacy enthusiasts, and especially crypto owners, will always likely choose cryptocurrencies to subscribe to our service. Therefore, it is essential that such transactions would happen in a timely manner, and CoinGate’s Lightning Network will us help us achieve that”, says Magnus Steinberg, Chief Marketing Officer at Surfshark.
Lightning Network has been developed to provide a cheaper and faster way for cryptocurrency transactions. It enables seamless exchange in high volumes between users, without the need for the network to confirm every exchange between peers. Transactions made over the Litecoin LN are verified and maintained by LN nodes, so they do not have to be immediately settled on the Litecoin network itself.
“Due to privacy reasons, VPN industry is one of the most common ones for crypto transactions. By hiding user’s real IP address and encoding any information the user sent to and downloaded online, a VPN provides the necessary protection layer to make cryptocurrency owner truly safe from being identified”, explains Magnus Steinberg.
Last year the LN solution was successfully tested by more than 4,000 CoinGate’s merchants for Bitcoin transactions. Following an overwhelming interest, the LN has been implemented for Litecoin payments to increase the scalability of cryptocurrency transactions.
For this pilot project, CoinGate chose Surfshark as a trustworthy VPN provider, which is only one of the very few who had completed an independent security audit. Surfshark’s security assessment concluded that the tested applications are not exposed to any issues, neither in the privacy nor in the more general security realms. The audit was carried out by the acknowledged German security company Cure53.