Lightspark Teams Up with Cross River Bank for Fiat Payments via Bitcoin

Lightspark, a Bitcoin Lightning Network startup founded by former Meta executive David Marcus, who oversaw the development of Meta’s Libra token, is pushing the idea of using BTC for everyday payments rather than long-term holding.

In a Wednesday announcement, Feb. 18, Lightspark said it had teamed up with Cross River Bank, a crypto-friendly, FDIC-insured bank, to support 24/7 settlement of Bitcoin network transactions through the U.S. banking system.

Cross River has become a key banking partner for crypto firms in the U.S., providing banking services to companies such as Circle, Coinbase and others, particularly across cards and stablecoin-linked programs.

Under the arrangement, Lightspark processes transactions on the Lightning Network, while Cross River settles the fiat legs via faster payment systems such as FedNow. The announcement says the collaboration targets B2B, cross-border and retail flows where immediate settlement materially changes cash management.

Usage Outpaces TVL

Lightning Network has had a strong but uneven run so far. Total network capacity climbed to new highs in late 2025 before easing slightly in mid-February of this year, while data from DefiLlama shows that total value locked stands near $338 million, a figure likely influenced by Bitcoin’s recent price pullback.

Despite the relatively low TVL compared to Ethereum Layer 2s, data cited by Sam Wouters, director of marketing at Bitcoin infrastructure firm River, shows the network processed an estimated $1.17 billion in volume in November 2025 alone across more than 5.2 million transactions, with the average Lightning transfer being around $223.

Still, Wouters noted that today the “most common use case for Lightning transactions is sending funds from and to exchanges,” highlighting how far the network still has to go as a retail payments rail.

At the same time, data from Mempoolspace shows growing infrastructure concentration, with more than 40% of Lightning nodes hosted on just two providers, Amazon and Google Cloud, with Amazon alone accounting for over a quarter of the network’s node power.