Cross-Border Payments

As the Lightning Network has started to reach the level of maturity necessary to facilitate instant and practically costless cross-border transactions, sovereign countries whose economies rely heavily on remittances have begun looking at bitcoin-friendly policies as a means to unlock the often-significant portions of their GDP lost to remittance fees. The most prominent example is El Salvador, where bitcoin was made legal tender in June 2021. Other countries where prominent politicians have voiced support for bitcoin-friendly policies include Tonga, Paraguay and Colombia. There are yet other remittance-dependent countries such as Nigeria, Vietnam and Philippines where bitcoin has seen widespread use, but where the state remains much less favourably inclined towards bitcoin-friendly policies.