Lightspark
Lightspark is a payments infrastructure company from the United States that moves money over bitcoin, the Lightning Network and stablecoins. Banks, neobanks, wallets and payment apps connect to its API to give their users dollar accounts, cards, payouts and transfers across borders, while Lightspark runs the accounts and the settlement in the background.
Lightspark Payments Europe AS in Tallinn is the European company of the group. The Estonian financial supervisor authorized it as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA and as an electronic money institution, so it can offer custody, exchange and transfers of crypto assets across the European Economic Area.
Founded by David Marcus in 2022
David Marcus, a former president of PayPal who later led the Diem project at Meta, founded Lightspark in 2022. Fortune reported that the company raised 175 million dollars to bring bitcoin payments into everyday use, and its first products were enterprise tools for the Lightning Network.
Lightspark later added the Universal Money Address, an identifier for payments that reads like an email address. The Brazilian digital bank Nubank integrated Lightning and the Universal Money Address through Lightspark, and the company also names SoFi, Coinbase and Revolut among the users of its infrastructure.
Authorization under MiCA
The Estonian Financial Supervision and Resolution Authority granted Lightspark Payments Europe AS a license as a crypto-asset service provider together with an authorization as an electronic money institution. The interim register of ESMA records the authorization under Article 63 of MiCA with the date 15 June 2026, and Lightspark announced the licenses on 1 July 2026 as the first standalone MiCA license in Estonia.
The authorization covers custody and administration of crypto assets for clients, exchange of crypto assets for money or for other crypto assets, and transfers of crypto assets on behalf of clients. The register lists 30 states of the European Economic Area for these services, Estonia included, because a CASP license from one member state can be passported to the others.
Striga and the team in Tallinn
In October 2025 Lightspark acquired Striga, a Tallinn company that offered card issuing, virtual IBANs, crypto custody and fiat ramps to European fintechs through one API. Lightspark Payments Europe AS carries the Estonian registry number of Striga Technology AS and works from the same address in Tallinn.
The European offering covers named virtual IBANs, a crypto wallet for each user, cards linked to bitcoin and stablecoins, and transfers over SEPA, SEPA Instant and the Lightning Network. Lightspark also sells a white-label app with wallets, trading, virtual IBANs and cards, which a company can publish under its own brand.
Upcoming payments events in Europe
What does Lightspark do?
Lightspark sells infrastructure that lets other companies move money over bitcoin and stablecoin rails without running their own nodes, wallets or licenses. Its API covers pay-ins, payouts, currency ramps, cross-border transfers, virtual accounts, cards and swaps, and the company describes itself as open infrastructure for moving money worldwide.
Grid and Global Accounts
Grid is the Lightspark product for global accounts, a white-label dollar account with a Visa card that a platform offers to its own users under its own brand. Lightspark ties the European launch of these accounts to its Estonian licenses and starts with cross-border payouts and ramps between dollars and stablecoins, before adding virtual accounts, card issuance and stablecoin issuance.
Lightspark Payments Europe AS
Lightspark Payments Europe AS is the licensed European company of Lightspark, registered in Tallinn under number 16298772 and owned by Lightspark Group, Inc. of Delaware. The Estonian supervisor issued activity license 4.1-1/52 for its crypto-asset services and activity license 4.1-1/53 for its business as an electronic money institution.
Payments over the Lightning Network
The Lightning Network settles bitcoin payments in seconds through payment channels outside the main blockchain, which makes small and cross-border payments cheap. Lightspark offers Lightning invoices and payments as a managed service, so a wallet or a neobank can send and receive Lightning payments without operating nodes or managing channel liquidity.
Crypto services for neobanks and wallets
Lightspark Payments Europe names neobanks, wallets, exchanges, card programs, Lightning apps and cross-border payment providers as its customers in Europe. The German bitcoin app Bitwala appears on the European site with a quote from its chief executive Dennis Daiber, and the list of MiCA-licensed providers shows which other firms hold an authorization of this kind.
Lightspark and Finance Loop
Finance Loop covers stablecoin payments and bitcoin payment rails in its Payments & Digital Money track. Finance Loop and Venturebloxx published the report Stablecoins: The Operating Layer for Global B2B Payments, which covers cross-border payouts and treasury flows of the kind that Lightspark builds for platforms.
Finance Loop is a professional network and has the goal of driving the institutional use of emerging technologies in finance, such as AI, digital payments, cloud and blockchain solutions. Finance Loop helps its members build skills and personal networks in these fields: Investment & Digital Assets, Payments & Digital Money, Digital Infrastructure & Sovereignty, and Risk & Compliance.