Blockstream, a global leader in Bitcoin infrastructure technology, has announced its new "Lightning-as-a-Service" solution called Greenlight, according to a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine. This offering aims to provide the integration of fast, cost-effective Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network for developers and enterprise clients worldwide.

The current landscape of Lightning payments presents users with a dilemma where they must choose between convenience and self-custody. Custodial solutions offer ease of use but sacrifice security and financial independence, while non-custodial solutions, although secure, demand substantial operational expertise.

"The challenge is to alleviate this burden without compromising on security or functionality," said Blockstream's Core Tech Engineer and Greenlight lead, Christian Decker. "It's designed to let developers integrate Lightning in their apps seamlessly while granting users full exclusive control over their funds."

Greenlight employs an architecture that ensures private keys, granting exclusive control of funds, are stored by the user and never shared with Blockstream's infrastructure. For app developers, this approach reduces the risk and liability associated with holding user funds while maintaining full control for users.

The introduction of Greenlight aims to simplify the challenges developers face in building and maintaining Lightning infrastructure. By outsourcing these complexities to Blockstream, companies can focus on creating innovative Lightning-based applications without compromising security or functionality, eliminating the need for costly solutions and freeing up precious time for innovation.

Greenlight developer certificates, providing access to the service's API, are available through the Greenlight developer console. To encourage the growth of applications that use self-custodial Lightning, Blockstream is offering a free tier, empowering developer experimentation with the capability to deploy up to 1,000 "on-demand" nodes. For enterprises with more extensive requirements, Blockstream offers paid plans that expand node limits and provide uptime and availability guarantees. 

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