Bitcoin infrastructure company Breez just shipped a feature that removes one of crypto’s annoying friction points. Its developer SDK now lets users send USDC or USDT to recipients on more than 30 blockchains, directly from a Bitcoin balance, without needing to hold or convert stablecoins first.
Here’s how it works. When a user enters a recipient’s wallet address, the Breez SDK figures out which blockchain the destination is on, calculates a conversion route, and shows the amount, network, and fees before the payment goes through. Liquidity providers like Flashnet and Boltz handle the Bitcoin-to-stablecoin conversion on the fly. The whole thing runs through the Lightning Network.
Breez CEO Roy Sheinfeld made a point of clarifying that this doesn’t require USDT or USDC to be issued on Lightning. It’s interoperability — you spend Bitcoin, the recipient gets stablecoins on whatever chain they prefer.
Users keep holding Bitcoin until they actually initiate a payment. Recipients get their stablecoins natively. The feature is non-custodial and, for now, supports only outbound stablecoin payments. Receiving stablecoins from external networks is on the roadmap.
The timing lines up with broader Lightning Network growth. A February River report estimated the network surpassed $1 billion in monthly transaction volume in late 2025, up from around $12 million in 2021. Institutional activity is picking up too — Secure Digital Markets completed a $1 million Lightning payment to Kraken in under half a second back in February. Voltage introduced a dollar-settled revolving credit line using Lightning, and Satlantis launched a Bitcoin-native event ticketing platform with embedded Lightning wallets.
