Stablecoins on Bitcoin coming soon, suggests Lightning Labs CEO

Elizabeth Stark unpacked the basics of Bitcoin Lightning at FT Live’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit and teased a new development on Bitcoin’s leading layer 2.

Stablecoins running on Bitcoin are edging closer to reality through new functionality built by Lightning Labs using the network’s Taproot upgrade implemented in late 2021.

Elizabeth Stark, CEO of Lightning Labs, unpacked the latest development from the Bitcoin development firm at FT Live’s Crypto and Digital Assets Summit in London.

The firm’s co-founder also gave an eloquent explainer of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network to an audience of traditional finance players.

Lightning Labs’ Taproot assets protocol is building functionality to bring stablecoins and tokenized assets to Bitcoin. According to Stark, developers have made significant headway toward this goal, culminating in the testing of transactions on Lightning:

“We released an early part of the code in October and recently demoed the first-ever transaction on Lightning of an asset. The idea is to have crypto dollars and stablecoins on the Bitcoin blockchain.”
Stark added that traditionally, these digital assets have operated on other blockchains that have suffered from high fees and other issues. She argues that Bitcoin’s network is perhaps best placed to facilitate the use of stablecoins because it “is the most secure and decentralized” blockchain.