Secure Digital Markets (SDM) carried out a historic $1 million Bitcoin transaction to Kraken via the Lightning Network on January 28, 2026—the largest publicly known transaction on the protocol to date. Driven by Voltage's enterprise-grade infrastructure, the transaction settled in around 0.43 seconds with nearly no costs (beyond a slight one-time channel opening charge). Far beyond past claimed peaks of about $140,000, this pilot showed Lightning's ability for high-value, near-instant settlements among controlled entities.
Meant originally for micro-payments, the Lightning Network has shown its readiness for seven-figure institutional volumes by facilitating quick treasure movements, venue settlements, and cross-entity transfers free of on-chain delays or exorbitant fees. SDM, Kraken, and Voltage leaders celebrated the achievement as proof of Lightning's readiness for business adoption; the transfer emphasized how managed nodes and pre-provisioned liquidity may reliably enable extensive uses.
Building on Kraken's current Lightning support for retail consumers and matching with general network expansion including growing capacity from liquidity providers such exchanges, the success strengthens institutional confidence in Bitcoin's second-layer scaling technology. This record highlights Lightning's movement toward mainstream, high-volume use beyond tiny transactions as merchant adoption approaches roughly 15% of BTC payments.
