Lightning Ramp and Casa Join Hands to Develop the Casa Lightning Node

The team behind Lightning Ramp, a system that provides customers with faster bitcoin payments, has joined forces with Casa, a “be-your-own-bank” product that provides users with a multi-signature, multi-hardware device and multi-location wallet designed, to offer top-notch security against attacks and theft. Together, both ventures are working to create the Casa Lightning Node, a platform designed to solve many problems associated with Lightning Ramp.

Debuting in February 2018, the Lightning Ramp was built to help exchanges connect with the Lightning Network, thereby giving millions of customers access to speedy Bitcoin and Litecoin payment options. During the project’s development, several issues, such as those involving key management, were uncovered that got in the way of mainstream Lightning adoption but adding a Lightning node to the mix is expected to resolve many of these problems.

In a Medium post, co-founder and CEO of Lightning Ramp Michael Borglin states, “When we met the Casa team, we were surprised to find that they previously built (but did not release) a multi-chain personal device in Q3 of 2017. They learned that without better key management software, personal node devices are at risk of being attacked. That’s why they focused 100 percent on building the best personal key manager on the planet first. By joining Casa, we combined our expertise in Lightning with their deep key management and security expertise.”

Jameson Lopp is the infrastructure engineer at Casa. Though he doesn’t work directly on the Lightning node project, he provides advice regarding node operations and best practices. Speaking with Bitcoin Magazine, he stated that the Lightning node project is a very different, yet complementary approach that allows users to spend money and enjoy low fees using a digital system.

“It will ultimately be a part of a suite of products, and vault users will be able to leverage the full node running on this device to verify their wallet transactions and balances without trusting Casa,” he explained. “Casa’s mission is to maximize personal sovereignty and safety. It’s a broad mission, and key management is just one part, but we believe it’s required to build a foundation upon which we can build self-sovereign systems.”

Borglin says that the Lightning node doesn’t require customers to rely on Casa servers to send or receive bitcoin payments. Furthermore, no coding is required, and the device is pre-synced with bitcoin for speedy activation. More information regarding product features is due out in a few weeks, but Casa plans to release 100 devices to the public as a means of testing their popularity.

Lopp says, “The first batch of 100 is set for delivery in October. Due to unexpected demand, we have also opened batches for delivery in both November and December, and we anticipate ramping up our production capabilities to produce more and more each subsequent month.”

Those interested in purchasing a Lightning node early may do so either through Open Bazaar or the Casa store, and purchases can be made with either credit cards or bitcoin.