Libra Creator David Marcus Begins New Lightning Network Venture, Lightspark

• “I wanted to stock that we are starting a caller institution called Lightspark to explore, physique and widen the capabilities and inferior of Bitcoin,” said Marcus successful a tweet. “As a archetypal step, we’re actively assembling a squad to dive deeper into the Lightning Network.”

• The caller task has raised an undisclosed backing circular co-led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Paradigm with information from Thrive Capital, Coatue, Felix Capital, Ribbit Capital, Matrix Partners and Zeev Ventures.

• Marcus antecedently founded Zong, a telecom billing web that was aboriginal acquired by PayPal (PYPL). He headed mobile payments astatine PayPal past became president. In 2014, Marcus moved to Meta (FB) to caput Facebook Messenger, past outgo products, wherever helium created the overmuch delayed (and yet closed) libra stablecoin project.

• “David’s latest project, Lightspark, aims astatine thing little than reinventing the largest and astir antiquated parts of fiscal services by gathering connected the Lightning Network,” wrote Matrix Partners’ Dana Stalder – an aboriginal capitalist successful Marcus’ Zong – in a blog post. “The squad volition stock much accusation implicit time, but suffice to say, determination is nary 1 I spot much than David to commencement and pb specified an ambitious company.”

• “Downturns are bully moments to absorption connected gathering and creating worth with mission-aligned people,” said Marcus. “We’re excited to dive into Lightning, larn much and enactment alongside the community. We’ll stock much astir our enactment arsenic we marque progress.”

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