Revolut Supercharges Bitcoin Payments with Lightspark Integration Across the UK and Europe
Revolut, a global leader in financial technology, has taken a decisive leap forward in digital payments by integrating Lightspark’s advanced Bitcoin infrastructure. With this Revolut-Lightspark partnership, Revolut brings the power of the Bitcoin Lightning Network directly to its customers in the UK and select European Economic Area (EEA) – countries.
With this move, Revolut is trying to get rid of the delays and high fees that have long plagued Bitcoin transactions. Using Lightspark’s next-generation tools, including the Universal Money Address (UMA), a platform that now enables fast, low-cost, and scalable BTC payments.
Key Takeaways
- Revolut is integrating the Bitcoin Lightning Network to enable faster, lower-cost Bitcoin payments for users in the UK and select EEA countries.
- Lightspark’s technology, including the Universal Money Address (UMA) and MoneyGrid, simplifies Bitcoin transfers and improves transaction reliability.
- This move strengthens Revolut’s crypto strategy by shifting from crypto trading toward enabling practical, everyday use of digital assets.
- The partnership positions Revolut competitively as more financial platforms look to support scalable Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network.
Revolut-Lightspark Partnership to Launch Bitcoin Lightning Network Payments in the UK and EEA
Revolut, one of the world’s leading fintech platforms with over 52 million users, has announced a strategic partnership with Lightspark to integrate the Bitcoin Lightning Network into its services. This collaboration represents a major leap forward for real-world Bitcoin payments, shifting the cryptocurrency from a store of value to a truly usable medium of exchange.
The goal of this partnership is clear: enable Revolut users in the UK and select EEA countries to send and receive Bitcoin faster, cheaper, and more efficiently. Lightspark brings to the table its advanced Bitcoin infrastructure tools, including a robust Lightning Network implementation and the Universal Money Address (UMA) protocol, which drastically improves the user experience of sending Bitcoin by removing the complexity associated with traditional wallet addresses.
For Revolut, this move is the natural progression of its crypto strategy. Since rolling out crypto trading and custody services across 30 EEA countries and the UK, the company has steadily positioned itself not just as a place to buy and sell crypto, but as a platform that enables real-world use. Its crypto division is growing rapidly, and the decision to integrate the Lightning Network signals Revolut’s intent to lead, not follow, in the next wave of digital finance innovation.
Bitcoin’s biggest limitations as a payment method have long been its speed and cost. Traditional Bitcoin transactions can take several minutes to confirm, and during periods of high network congestion, fees can spike significantly. These inefficiencies make on-chain Bitcoin impractical for everyday use, like splitting a restaurant bill or sending small amounts of money to friends. That’s where the Lightning Network comes in. It’s a layer-2 scaling solution built on top of Bitcoin that allows for nearly instant payments with very low fees. Instead of every transaction being recorded directly on the blockchain, Lightning opens payment channels between users, allowing them to transact rapidly off-chain and only settle the final balance on the main network when necessary.
Lightspark has made Lightning viable for mainstream financial institutions by offering a complete suite of developer and enterprise tools. Its MoneyGrid technology intelligently routes transactions through the network to minimize liquidity issues and ensure reliability. Additionally, the Universal Money Address system allows users to send Bitcoin using simple email-like identifiers – for example, “jane@revolut” – instead of long alphanumeric wallet addresses. This reduces errors, enhances user confidence, and simplifies the experience to a level consumers expect from modern financial services.
David Marcus, co-founder and CEO of Lightspark and former president of PayPal, emphasized the transformative nature of this partnership. He described the Lightning Network as the 5G of money, a vast improvement over the “dial-up” speed of traditional banking systems. His vision is of a financial future that is instant, low-cost, and borderless – one that aligns closely with the fintech ethos Revolut embodies.
Emil Urmanshin, General Manager of Crypto at Revolut, echoed this sentiment, noting that integrating with Lightspark allows the company to provide its users with faster and more affordable financial solutions. By doing so, Revolut isn’t just enhancing its platform; it’s helping to redefine how digital assets can be used in the global economy.
The implications of this integration go far beyond a single app feature. It could serve as a model for other financial platforms to follow, especially as demand increases for crypto to move beyond speculative investment and into practical utility. It’s worth noting that Revolut is joining a growing list of major companies embracing the Lightning Network. Coinbase recently began routing some Bitcoin payments via Lightning through Lightspark’s infrastructure, and Strike, another prominent player in Bitcoin payments, processed over $6 billion in Lightning transactions last year. The momentum is building.
By incorporating Lightspark’s technology, Revolut addresses several core challenges that have limited Bitcoin’s utility. First, transaction speed improves dramatically. Payments on the Lightning Network are typically completed in seconds, compared to 10 minutes or more for on-chain confirmations. Second, the cost is significantly lower. Fees are often just fractions of a cent, which makes Bitcoin practical for small transactions and micro-payments. Third, user experience improves through features like UMA, which eliminates the need to handle confusing and risky wallet addresses.
This partnership also positions Revolut well in a competitive landscape where fintech companies are racing to integrate advanced crypto capabilities. Cash App, for instance, has supported Lightning payments for some time. For Revolut, the move helps it stand out not just as a crypto-friendly platform but as a serious contender in the race to define the future of digital payments.
From a business perspective, Revolut benefits by offering differentiated features that strengthen customer retention and acquisition. For users, the main value lies in the convenience and speed of transactions, especially when sending funds across borders or paying for services in real time. The integration also opens the door to additional use cases such as peer-to-peer tipping, micropayments for content, and seamless global remittances.
Of course, there are challenges. The Lightning Network requires liquidity to function smoothly, and while Lightspark’s infrastructure is designed to mitigate this issue through intelligent routing, scaling up to millions of users could stress even a robust system. Additionally, regulation remains a concern. Although off-chain Lightning payments may navigate some of the transaction-related regulatory scrutiny, Revolut still needs to ensure compliance with anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements.
Still, the potential upside is significant. For Revolut, this could be the beginning of a much larger crypto payments strategy. If the rollout is successful in initial markets, expansion to other regions, deeper integrations into Revolut’s business banking services, or even partnerships with retailers for point-of-sale Bitcoin payments could follow. It may also prompt traditional financial institutions to re-evaluate their stance on Bitcoin and Lightning Network capabilities, especially if consumers begin demanding faster and cheaper alternatives to existing payment rails.
The timing is strategic. With institutional Bitcoin adoption on the rise, from public companies holding BTC on their balance sheets to increased flows into Bitcoin ETFs, public trust in crypto as an asset class is growing. But trust alone doesn’t drive usage – infrastructure does. What Lightspark and Revolut are building is infrastructure with a purpose: making Bitcoin practical.
In the end, this partnership could be one of the most consequential in the evolution of Bitcoin’s role in the financial ecosystem. It’s not about headlines or hype – it’s about solving real problems with real technology. Revolut is using its reach and reputation to bring Bitcoin payments to the mainstream, while Lightspark provides the technical foundation that makes such a move feasible and sustainable.
If successful, this collaboration will not just be another fintech feature release – it will be a signal that the world’s financial systems are ready to evolve, and that Bitcoin, powered by the Lightning Network, has a real shot at becoming money for the internet age.
About Revolut
Revolut Group Holdings Ltd, doing business as Revolut, is a British multinational neobank and financial technology company headquartered in London, England; it was founded on 1 July 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and Vlad Yatsenko. Since its launch, Revolut has expanded its mobile banking platform to serve more than 52.5 million retail customers across over 48 countries and employs over 10,000 people globally. The app offers both free and subscription-based digital banking services, including domestic and international bank transfers, multi-currency current accounts, debit and credit cards, peer-to-peer payments, stock and cryptocurrency trading, savings accounts, personal loans, insurance, and buy-now-pay-later products.
As of August 2024, Revolut’s valuation reached $45 billion, making it the most valuable private tech company in Europe, and its latest annual report recorded $4 billion in revenue and $1.4 billion in profit before tax. By mid-2024, Revolut was preparing for a potential initial public offering, with filings underway for a Nasdaq listing and discussions for a London float, even as it holds full banking licenses in the UK and through its Revolut Bank UAB subsidiary under the European Central Bank, offering deposit protection in 30 EEA markets. In May 2025, the company announced a $1.1 billion investment plan over three years to expand its presence in France and establish Paris as its Western European headquarters.
About Lightspark
Founded in May 2022 and headquartered in Los Angeles, Lightspark Group, Inc. delivers enterprise-grade infrastructure for real-time Bitcoin and Lightning Network payments via its flagship “Money Grid,” which bridges traditional banking rails with decentralized blockchain networks to enable instant, low-cost, borderless transactions. The platform supports connectivity across 140+ countries, processes transactions in over 120 currencies, and serves more than 300 million end users, powering solutions such as Lightspark Connect, Universal Money Addresses (UMA), and the Spark smart-routing engine.
Co-founded by fintech veteran David Marcus (formerly President of PayPal and head of Facebook’s Diem project), Christian Catalini, and Tomer Barel, Lightspark launched with a seed round co-led by Andreessen Horowitz’s a16z Crypto and Paradigm, joined by Felix Capital, Coatue Management, Matrix Partners, and Ribbit Capital in May 2022. Since then, the company has forged key integrations – including powering Lightning transactions for Coinbase’s millions of users – and continues to expand its ecosystem through developer SDKs, compliance-grade services, and global partnerships aimed at driving mainstream adoption of Bitcoin payments.
Conclusion
The partnership between Revolut and Lightspark marks a turning point in how Bitcoin can be used for everyday transactions. By combining Revolut’s global user base and regulatory footprint with Lightspark’s infrastructure and Lightning Network expertise, the two companies are removing key barriers that have held back Bitcoin’s practical use – speed, cost, and complexity.
If adoption scales as intended, this could reshape expectations for digital payments, not just in crypto, but across the broader financial industry. For Revolut users, it means faster and cheaper transfers. For the fintech sector, it signals that Bitcoin is no longer limited to investment – it’s being built for utility.
