Bitcoin News Today: Bitcoin's Lightning Network Aims to Outpace SWIFT and Visa in Global Payments

David Marcus, of PayPal and CEO of Lightspark, has positioned Bitcoin as a transformative force in global finance, predicting it could process trillions of dollars in daily transactions through its Lightning Network. In a recent Gate.com interview, Marcus emphasized Bitcoin's potential as an open "money network" and a low-cost, real-time settlement layer, challenging traditional systems like SWIFT and Visa. His remarks, rooted in decades of experience in payment infrastructure, underscore a growing institutional and technological confidence in Bitcoin's scalability and utility.

Marcus's vision is anchored in the Lightning Network, a Layer-2 solution enabling near-free, instant Bitcoin transactions. He highlighted that while SWIFT processes $5 trillion daily with settlement times of 1–5 days and Visa handles $33 billion in instant but high-fee transactions, the Lightning Network could theoretically surpass both in volume and efficiency, the interview noted. By 2025, the Lightning Network's capacity has surged 3,000%, with over 20,000 active nodes, theoretically enabling millions of transactions per second. Lightspark, Marcus's company, is building APIs and SDKs to lower technical barriers for businesses, mirroring the ease of integration seen in platforms like Stripe.

The former PayPal executive's credibility stems from his career trajectory. At PayPal, he oversaw hundreds of millions of daily transactions, while his work on Facebook's Diem project, though terminated, deepened his understanding of digital currencies. Now, Lightspark's focus on Lightning infrastructure aligns with his long-term goal of a global, low-cost payment network. Early use cases, such as cross-border remittances in Central America and micropayments in gaming, demonstrate the Lightning Network's practicality despite current scale limitations, Marcus said in the interview.

Institutional adoption is another catalyst for Bitcoin's growth. With a market capitalization near $1.3 trillion and $15–20 billion in daily on-chain transactions, Bitcoin has attracted over $60 billion in ETF inflows in 2025. Public companies like MicroStrategy and Tesla have added Bitcoin to their balance sheets, while El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, though mixed, set a precedent. Marcus pointed to stablecoins on Bitcoin—such as Stacks' sBTC and RGB protocols—as critical to addressing price volatility, enabling Bitcoin to function as both a store of value and a medium for everyday transactions, according to the interview.

However, challenges remain. Regulatory clarity, technological maturity, and user experience improvements are prerequisites for Bitcoin to process trillions daily. Marcus acknowledged a "gradual transition," estimating a 5–10 year timeframe for infrastructure and adoption to align. A pivotal moment could come if major payment processors like Visa integrate the Lightning Network, potentially unlocking hundreds of millions of users. From an investment perspective, Marcus argued that Bitcoin's value as a settlement layer should correlate with its transaction volume and liquidity, potentially justifying a market capitalization in the tens of trillions if it achieves $5 trillion in daily processing, he added in the interview.