French State-Owned Bank Joins The Lighting Network Startup Fund

A major French state-owned bank is now joining the Bitcoin’s (BTC) Lighting Network which secured $8 million in funding from partners. At press time, the bank is in the blockchain news today because it is partially owned by the French state.

Everything came from a press release published on October 9, which shows that Bitcoin technology company ACINQ confirmed the news – bringing the total investment to $10 million. The funding initially came from the lead contributor named Idinvest Partners, which is known for its focus on small and medium-sized European businesses.

Among the involved parties were also the names of Bpifrance, an investment bank created by two French public entities. For now, the French state-owned bank is leading the way.

All of this led to the government being very close to directly funding the improvement of Bitcoin in what is seen as a softening of the country’s stance on cryptocurrency. While the Bitcoin news show that BTC is still struggling at around $8,000, Bpifrance is confident in its undertaking.

“Cryptocurrency’s potential is becoming more and more obvious. In this area where there is still much to explore and build, Bitcoin provides a platform for experimenting and implementing that is second to none. […] Lightning is its most promising scalability solution and we’re happy and proud to help and partner with ACINQ, a French company that is one of the world leaders of this new technology,” the digital investment director at the French state-owned bank Veronique Jacq noted.

ACINQ stated that it would use the money to improve the Lighting protocol as well as expand its own business operations. The update comes right as commentators continue to put faith in the fact that Lighting allows for faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions.

As many news sites reported before this, it was exactly Samson Mow (the CSO of fellow Bitcoin technology firm Blockstream) who recently reconfirmed his belief that Lighting would form part of Bitcoin’s future mainstream presence. Still, the journey to common usage cannot come as a result of a single watershed moment as he said:

“Lightning has to grow organically, there’s no real way to jumpstart it artificially. People need to open up channels, lock up Bitcoins and start connecting with other nodes.”

Anyways, the recent confirmation showing that a French state-owned bank joins LN are major and everywhere in the Bitcoin news today.