Brian Armstrong, the co-founder and chief executive of Coinbase, took to Twitter earlier today to invite Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to build the Bitcoin Lightning Network on his crypto exchange together. Armstrong’s comments came after Dorsey accused him of ignoring Bitcoin and the Lightning Network.
Dorsey, who is a well-known supporter of Bitcoin and decentralized payments, recently questioned Armstrong regarding his reluctance to promote Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, which is a layer 2 payment protocol built on the flagship blockchain. Dorsey was responding to a tweet by Armstrong who was talking about improving the global payments infrastructure through crypto.
Armstrong told his followers last week that Coinbase was dedicated to making payments instant and free globally. According to him, the current payments landscape was still stuck on layer 1 and required the integration of layer 2 protocols, better on-ramps, and a simpler interface for onboarding users.
Questioning Armstrong’s stance on BTC and the Lightning Network, Dorsey tweeted,
Why do you continue to ignore bitcoin and lightning? What “crypto” is a better money transmission protocol and why?
In response, Armstrong clarified today that his exchange was looking into ways to efficiently integrate the Lightning Network, which was something that he thought was worth doing. The Coinbase CEO added that he was in favor of Bitcoin payments and questioned Dorsey’s claim about him ignoring Bitcoin, adding that Coinbase had onboarded more people to Bitcoin than any other company in the world.
Dorsey agreed that Coinbase had onboarded more users to Bitcoin than any other company, but urged Armstrong and his exchange to redirect their resources towards BTC and layer 2 technologies. Dorsey agreed that that common goal was to establish an open protocol for money transmission on the internet that didn’t rely on an individual, company, or government.
