@ethanmarcusi
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This has been a long time in the making; it feels so great to finally be able to announce this.
Native Bitcoin trading is an imperative. Permissionless global liquidity for the largest asset in crypto.
Ethan Marcus retweeted
📢 Robinhood Chain 🪶is now live on @THORSwap and @MetroXchange!
Trade native bitcoin:native $ETH $SOL binancecoin:native, top stablecoins and more in 1-click with memecoins & tokenized stocks ($NVDA, $AAPL, $AMZN, $SPCX, $TSLA, $GOOGL etc) on the hottest L2 built for DeFi & RWAs 🔥
1/ Learn more 🧵👇
Ethan Marcus retweeted
There's been a round of misinformation about Spark going around, so for the sake of setting the record straight, I'll briefly clear up a few things.
For one, unilateral exit has been around since the early days of Spark. Many developers and users have used it. This has been demonstrated many times both here on X and during the process of integration by developers. Unilateral exit also does not require the SOs to be online when a user wishes to exit. When a transaction is received, users can save the unilateral exit information and later use those pre-signed, valid L1 Bitcoin transactions at any time on Bitcoin. There are existing Github issues to expose unilateral exits in a more intuitive way in the SDKs, but unilateral exits themselves have been functional for a very long time. Unilateral exits do require CPFP - this is used to ensure that the expected value for an attacker is negative. The typical user would perform a cooperative exit, which does not require any on-chain funds and is an atomic swap of on-chain funds in exchange for Spark funds. Unilateral exits are generally reserved for a worst-case scenario and can be sponsored by an L1 fund provider if needed.
Second, the confusion around "Sparkcore". At Lightspark, we use a monorepo for our server code. This one service is called Sparkcore - the naming of which preceded the creation of Spark. Lightspark runs an SSP within this service. Our Lightning infrastructure uses both LDK and LND - both of which we contribute code towards. Sparkcore itself is not open sourced - that would mean open sourcing our entire server-side stack for every product we have built. The Spark network code, however, has always been open source - and that's the openness that matters, because it's the code that actually enforces the rules of Spark. The SSP is an optional, replaceable convenience role.
A recent post claimed that APIs used for other products are part of the SSP. We have many products, and we have never been shy about describing UMA, which allows regulated entities to exchange information to process transactions over Lightning. This is not a Spark product. The SSP does not hold your seed phrase (that should never leave your device), the SSP cannot freeze your funds, and the SSP isn't even a required role to use Spark - it is the interop layer between Lightning and Spark and helps do swaps for exact denominations of leaves. Running an SSP is something we have talked with many partners about. The client chooses which SSP they wish to interact with (if any) - we cannot control if a client talks to a new SSP.
Finally, privacy. I've discussed this many times in the past, so won't belabor the point again. Spark allows for transactions to be hidden from external visibility. As I've spoken about at length both here and at various conferences, we care deeply about making sure that there is true privacy, and we aren't satisfied with anything short of that. It's an ongoing effort to continue to further the research in this area.
I'll leave it with this. In the network our critics operate, the default payment path is one where the operator colluding with any prior owner can double-spend the current holder - their own docs say so. Receiving over Lightning means trusting that the operator deleted a key - their own docs say so. If you don't come online every 28 days, the operator can take your funds. In their founder's own words: "In theory it could steal it." The automatic re-issuance of expired funds promised in March 2025 still hasn't shipped. Their operator's liquidity costs scale with payment volume, which by their own admission "will translate into user fees." And there is exactly one operator - their own docs tell everyone else: "Do not attempt to run an Ark server in production (yet!)." Spark has three independent operators, exits that don't expire, and no flow where a single operator can take user funds. Users can judge for themselves.
Our users and the developers building on top of Spark care about bringing Bitcoin to more people. They value the ease of use and simplicity of Spark. They care that we have 3 independent SOs. They care that we are pushing for more and better functionality. And they value that we spend all of our time thinking about how to make Spark better each and every day. Ok, now back to building because that's what we do at Spark.
Ethan Marcus retweeted
Introducing Send USDT/USDC for the Breez SDK 🔥
Bitcoin can now reach anyone. Even the people who live on dollars.
Any app or service can send dollars across 30+ networks, instantly, straight from a bitcoin balance.
One balance, no second network to manage. Bitcoin goes out, dollars arrive.
The future of Bitcoin UX is here.
One tap. CashApp → Avvio. Done
Deposits from CashApp are now live @tryavvio Powered by @lightspark + @flashnet .
See @againes_ from @blendmoney run it live 📷
Ethan Marcus retweeted
NEW @gwartygwart w/ @ethanmarcus: Solving the liquidity silo problem
"Bitcoin markets trade upwards of $30 trillion a year basically entirely through trusted custodial intermediaries."
also:
- solana & stables
- why @flashnet moved on from Lightning
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Solving the $30 trillion liquidity silo problem
Ethan Marcus discusses solving Bitcoin's $30 trillion liquidity silo problem & why they moved on from the Lightning Network to build on Spark.
One of a kind
If you care about craft, then download Bread. The team has been obsessing over what the best Bitcoin neobank looks like for years
> Use our code (8GBYTH) and you might get a surprise
Welcome, @generalbreadco
Ethan Marcus retweeted
We just shipped stablecoins on @CashApp.
Everything runs from your existing USD balance - no separate wallet, no managing multiple chains, no extra setup, and importantly no fees.
Send and receive USDC on SOL, ETH, POL, and ARB.
The most seamless integration in the world imo.
CashApp team is COOKING!
Kudos to @milessuter and co for the great work
Send me Belo links
Sent $1 from @CashApp to ARS on @belo_app for @AriEiberman
Time: 10s
Fee: $0
Network: Bitcoin
This is what happens when every financial app opens a clean connection to permissionless networks
So good. @flashnet inside
Hoy lanzamos la posibilidad de recibir remesas desde EEUU 🇺🇸 vía Cash App 💲 a @belo_app 💜
Usuarios de 11 países de Latam pueden recibir dólares, sin comisiones, el mejor tipo de cambio y acreditación inmediata en tu cuenta de belo.
Hoy las remesas a estos países representan aproximadamente $75 mil millones de dólares que van a para a las familias de los latinos que viven en EEUU, con comisiones que suelen rondar el 5% en la mayor de los casos.
Gracias a belo pueden recibirlo de la forma más simple, sin comisiones y directo a su cuenta de @belo_app
The @daimo team is world class.
Proud to be powering this @flashnet
Deposit from Cash App to Hyperliquid in seconds
Excited to work with @liquidtrading to bring the easiest deposit experience to consumer apps
Ethan Marcus retweeted
Bitcoin and DeFi worlds have for the last five years been completely siloed.
In the last few months @gardenfi and @flashnet have launched the first LN<>stablecoin bridges and introduced a ton of new use cases.
Replying to @milessuter
Lightning-enabled bridges? How does that work? I've been paying with other assets to Bitcoin-accepting vendors with DEXes like NEAR/Maya/THORChain. I'd be interested to learn about these lightning-enabled bridges.
Ethan Marcus retweeted
Excellent analogy: Post-Mythos, LLMs have fully surpassed human hackers. Proving something is safe means spending more tokens than attackers will.
That's the PoW security model to a tee. Cryptoeconomics now applies to all software.
Recommended reading👇
dbreunig.com/2026/04/14/cybe…
Half a year later, Spark is eating everyone's lunch.
Not because their statechain has better trust assumptions but because it simply works.
Today is a good day.
> The largest stablecoin company (@Tether)
> Just launched a wallet
> Lightning + global money with usernames (e.g., $satoshi@tether.me)
> Powered by Spark (but you won’t even notice)
Tether Wallet, The People's Wallet
Tether has achieved the widest financial inclusion success story in the history of humanity.
For more than a decade, Tether has built its company on a simple mission: bringing financial inclusion to the billions of people, primarily living in developing countries, who were left behind by the traditional financial system, those who never had access to basic financial services, and those who live in high-inflation countries.
This number is higher than most think, almost half of the population of the world.
As of March 2026, Tether’s technology is used by more than 570 million people globally, with adoption continuing to accelerate across emerging and developed markets alike, at the pace of tens of millions of new wallets added per quarter.
With tether.wallet, that entire infrastructure, the widest and most granular money distribution network built by humanity, becomes directly accessible to end users for the first time.
Features:
- 100% self-custodial with simple backup user experience (one click encrypted secret backup/restore with your cloud account or simply export the 12 words); only you are in control of your funds; no middleman or intermediaries.
- Assets available: only people need; Bitcoin, Digital Dollars (USDT, USAT) and Gold (XAUT).
- Bitcoin: on-chain, lightning network and spark support
- USDT/USAT/XAUT: supported blockchain list will expand rapidly within next 30 days; USDT0 is already integrated; soon TW will implement seamless swaps across all chains -> insane user experience
- Send transaction user experience perfected for the people; gasless send for USDT/USAT/XAUT, i.e you don't need to own/buy/deposit gas tokens (ETH, TRON, ...) etc to send assets; the Wallet solves all the complexity for you behind the scenes (via paymaster)
- One address: generate your [at] tether.me address to receive/send assets to any other tethered wallet -> unparalleled user experience
- 100% built on WDK by Tether, our open-source Wallet Development Kit
Please share your feedback and thanks for all you support.
We're unstoppable together ❤️