Building the Internet for Money: Inside Lightspark's Grid

Three connected products

Lightspark Grid handles real-time money movement. David Marcus says a customer who opens an account can send money in local currencies to 65 countries in real time on the same day, and that the network is expanding to 70. He says hundreds of wallets and neobanks use Grid as their money-movement backbone, for payouts, pay-ins and virtual named accounts.

Grid Global Accounts, announced six weeks before the interview, gives platforms that do many payouts a branded dollar or multicurrency account with a Visa card that can be spent at 175 million merchants. Spark, Lightspark's Bitcoin layer two, moves stablecoins and Bitcoin in real time.

Europe, China and cards

Outside Europe, David Marcus says Lightspark has built redundant routes into every payment network, because aggregators often deliver less than they promise. This week the company is adding China, which he calls really hard to do for consumer and business flows in Yuan. He also says Lightspark is becoming a Visa principal member and will enable stablecoin-backed card issuance in 100 plus countries.

An open network

David Marcus describes a long-running frustration that money does not move on the internet like other content. He says Lightspark built Lightspark Grid as an open network it does not own or control, and that he would rather build something that outlasts this generation than chase a sale. Grid supports stablecoins such as USDC and USDT across blockchains, and the company partners with Brale on USDB while letting platforms bring their own stablecoin.