Following through on its promise in May, crypto exchange giant Binance confirmed on Tuesday that it has begun running multiple nodes on Bitcoin’s lightning network. 

The exchange plans to leverage the layer-2 scaling solution to enable cheaper Bitcoin (BTC) deposits and withdrawals on its platform. 

• Binance resolved to integrate lightning after an explosion in memecoin / Ordinals popularity on Bitcoin in May, which triggered major blockchain congestion and drove up transaction fees by over 1000%. 
• The event interfered with exchanges like Binance attempting to satisfy users’ deposit and withdrawal requests, prompting the exchange to briefly suspend BTC withdrawals on May 7. 
• In response, the firm increased the transaction fee it attached to Bitcoin withdrawals (to ensure they’d be processed faster by miners) and assured followers that lightning network withdrawals were in the works. 

To prevent a similar recurrence in the future, our fees have been adjusted. We will continue to monitor on-chain activity and adjust accordingly if needed.

Our team has also been working on enabling BTC Lightning Network withdrawals, which will help in such situations.

— Binance (@binance) May 8, 2023

• “Some eagle-eyed users spotted our new lightning nodes recently. Yes – that’s us,” tweeted Binance on Tuesday. “There’s still more tech work to be done. We’ll update once Lightning is fully integrated.”
• Lightning nodes allow Bitcoin users to instantly transfer funds amo