Across the payments space, a change is underway. Consumers expect money to move as fast as information — instantly, cheaply, and across borders. And yet, many payment service providers (PSPs) remain stuck in the past world of legacy infrastructure, settlement delays, and transaction costs that haven’t meaningfully improved in decades.
For smaller or mid-sized PSPs in particular, the pressure is harder. Competing with global fintech giants and defending margin against newer, faster entrants is no easy task. The good news? There is a new set of rails emerging — ones purpose-built for this real-time era.
Enter Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. And with it, an opportunity to leapfrog the incumbents.
The Bottleneck Isn’t Technology — It’s Settlement
Most PSPs today are well-equipped on the frontend. They offer sleek onboarding, APIs for developers, and integrations for merchants. But the real drag on performance and profitability lies on the backend. Settlement timelines can stretch for days. Transactions rack up 2–4% in card fees. Cross-border transfers require complicated bank relationships and foreign exchange layers.
And critically, capital is locked up in the system while these slow-moving transactions finalize. For businesses that live on margin and volume, that’s a serious constraint.
This is exactly the kind of problem Lightning was built to solve.
Lightning Network: Infrastructure for Instant Value Transfer
Originally launched to address Bitcoin’s scalability challenges, the Lightning Network has matured into a high-performance payments layer — capable of handling millions of transactions per second, with finality in milliseconds and fees that round down to zero.
But this isn’t just theoretical. Leading companies like Block (Square and Cash App) are now using Lightning to process real payments. According to Cash App’s 2025 reporting, over 25% of their outbound Bitcoin payments now happen on Lightning. Volume grew 7x year-over-year (2024 data). And it’s no longer just Bitcoin: companies are building stablecoin functionality over Lightning rails using innovations like Taproot Assets.
This is not a science experiment. It’s a production-grade system being used by the most forward-thinking payments companies in the world.
What This Means for PSPs
For PSPs looking to offer a better experience, Lightning offers a way to radically improve both the economics and performance of payments:
- Speed: Instant settlement means money moves in real time — no waiting, no batching.
- Cost: Near-zero fees eliminate the erosion from card networks and banking middlemen.
- Reach: Payments can be sent and received globally without relying on correspondent banking.
- Finality: Transactions on Lightning are irreversible, reducing fraud and chargebacks.
But perhaps most importantly, Lightning allows smaller PSPs to punch above their weight. By offering the same instant, global payments experience as the biggest fintechs — without needing hundreds of engineers or massive banking relationships — they can win more merchants, attract more developers, and serve new geographies.
Addressing the Volatility Concern
One common objection from PSPs is that Bitcoin is too volatile to be useful for day-to-day payments. This is a fair concern — and one that modern Lightning infrastructure solves.
At Voltage, we offer Lightning-native payments infrastructure that allows businesses to send and receive payments over Bitcoin’s Lightning Network — while settling in U.S. dollars or stablecoins. This gives companies the performance of Lightning without the exposure to Bitcoin’s price swings.
The benefits of Bitcoin rails, without needing to hold Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
A Strategic Window Is Open
Not every PSP needs to be Stripe. But every PSP now has access to tools that, just a few years ago, were only available to the largest firms with the deepest engineering benches. This is a rare moment — a strategic window to upgrade core infrastructure, differentiate your offering, and gain market share in underserved regions.
Most PSPs know where the market is going. Consumers want instant. Merchants want cheaper. Developers want better APIs. Lightning delivers all of it — and with infrastructure providers like Voltage, it’s now a straightforward integration. Learn how we are simplifying lightning infrastructure.
Final Thoughts
The future of payments is real-time, global, and open. PSPs that act now can gain a meaningful advantage — not just in cost savings, but in strategic relevance. The shift is already underway. Block, Strike, Binance, and others have paved the way.
If your company is ready to compete in a real-time world, Lightning isn’t just the right technology — it’s the right bet.
Voltage helps payment service providers deliver instant, global payments over the Lightning Network, with USD settlement and simple APIs. Get in touch to see what’s possible.
