As Bitcoin continues its evolution from a decentralised store of value into a viable global payments infrastructure, a new generation of companies is working to bridge the gap between protocol innovation and enterprise adoption. Among them is Bobby Shell, Vice President of Marketing at Voltage, a leading Lightning Network payment infrastructure provider focused on enabling instant, low-cost global settlement for businesses.
With nearly three decades of entrepreneurial and marketing experience, Shell has built and scaled organisations across multiple sectors. Prior to joining Voltage, he spent more than ten years at Marketing 360, helping to grow the company from $4 million to $100 million in revenue while leading large, cross-functional marketing teams. His transition into Bitcoin and B2B SaaS reflects a strategic shift towards emerging financial technologies with transformative potential.
At Voltage, Shell is driving go-to-market strategy for infrastructure that connects businesses directly to Bitcoin’s Layer 1 security and Lightning’s Layer 2 speed. In this interview with TechBullion, he discusses how Voltage abstracts the operational complexity of Lightning, addresses real-world payment challenges across industries such as iGaming and fintech, and positions itself at the forefront of stablecoin integration and multi-asset settlement on Bitcoin. The conversation offers a clear view into how enterprise-grade Bitcoin infrastructure is reshaping the future of global payments.
Please tell us your name and a little more about yourself?
Bobby Shell: I launched my first business at age 11 and have been passionate about entrepreneurship ever since.
After 28 years building and marketing small businesses (SMB), I transitioned to B2B SaaS in 2021. I discovered Bitcoin in 2017, studied it deeply, and now serve as part of Voltage, where I’ve developed a strong love for early-stage go-to-market in tech and AI.
Above all, Jesus is my Savior. I’m happily married with two boys and cherish my family deeply.
Could you outline Voltage’s core mission and explain how your infrastructure utilises Bitcoin Layer 1 and the Lightning Network to enable instant, low-cost global payments in both Bitcoin and USD?
Voltage exists to make Bitcoin’s payment infrastructure accessible to businesses that need enterprise-grade reliability but don’t want to build it themselves.
The way it works is straightforward. Bitcoin’s Layer 1 is the settlement layer. It’s the most secure, decentralized financial network in the world, but it’s slow by design. Transactions take minutes, sometimes hours, and fees can spike unpredictably.
Lightning, Layer 2, solves that. It’s a network of payment channels built on top of Bitcoin that enables instant settlement with near-zero fees. You get the security of Bitcoin with the speed of modern payments.
Voltage provides the infrastructure that connects businesses to both layers. We manage the nodes, handle the liquidity, and provide the APIs that let companies plug into Lightning without hiring a team of protocol engineers. Whether you’re moving Bitcoin or, increasingly, USD-denominated stablecoins, our platform handles the complexity so businesses can focus on their products.
Our mission is simple: make instant, global, final settlement the default for any business that wants it.
How does the Lightning Network address key payment challenges within the iGaming sector, such as high transaction fees, chargebacks, and limited payment rails, and what specific solutions does Voltage provide to operators in this industry?
iGaming operators face a brutal payments environment. Credit card fees take 3% or more off every deposit. Chargebacks are unpredictable and expensive. And in many markets, traditional payment rails simply don’t reach players.
Lightning solves all three.
First, fees. Lightning transactions cost fractions of a penny regardless of transaction size. That 3% operators lose on every credit card swipe? It’s gone. That margin goes back to the operator.
Second, chargebacks. Bitcoin transactions are irreversible by design. Once a payment settles, it’s final. No disputes, no clawbacks, no chargeback fraud. That’s a massive risk reduction for operators.
Third, reach. Lightning is global and permissionless. If a player has a Lightning wallet, they can deposit and withdraw instantly, anywhere in the world, without relying on local banking infrastructure.
What Voltage provides is the infrastructure layer that makes this real for operators. We offer a simple API integration, managed Lightning nodes with enterprise uptime guarantees, and the liquidity to support high-volume deposits and withdrawals. Operators don’t need to become Bitcoin experts. They just need to connect to our platform.
We demonstrated this at ICE Barcelona recently. Nearly 200 meetings, over 135 qualified prospects. The demand is real because the pain is real.
How does Voltage’s platform support seamless interoperability between Bitcoin Layer 1 settlements and Lightning Layer 2 for real-time, high-volume transactions?
Our platform is designed to abstract the complexity of managing both layers.
Layer 1 is where final settlement happens. It’s the anchor. When you open or close a Lightning channel, that’s a Layer 1 transaction. It’s secure and final, but it takes time and costs more in fees.
Layer 2, Lightning, is where speed happens. Payments settle in milliseconds with near-zero fees. But Lightning channels need to be managed, liquidity needs to be balanced, and nodes need to stay online.
Voltage handles all of that. We provide managed nodes with enterprise-grade uptime. We handle channel management and liquidity so businesses don’t have to worry about whether a payment will route successfully. And we offer APIs that make integration straightforward for development teams.
For high-volume businesses, this means they can process thousands of transactions on Layer 2, then settle to Layer 1 when it makes sense. They get the speed of Lightning for day-to-day operations and the finality of Bitcoin for treasury and reconciliation.
It’s the best of both layers, without the operational burden.
What is the yield-bearing potential of the Lightning Network, and how does Voltage enable lending opportunities, capital efficiency, or flexible credit facilities for businesses without the need for pre-funding?
This is one of the most underappreciated aspects of Lightning. The network requires liquidity to function. Payments route through channels, and those channels need capital on both sides to move value. That creates a natural yield opportunity.
When you provide liquidity to the Lightning Network, you earn routing fees every time a payment passes through your channels. It’s not speculative. It’s fee income from real economic activity. Cash App reported earning 9.7% yield on their routing at Bitcoin 2025 Conference. This has led to a massive interest now that there is a clear and viable approach to yield without giving away your keys, and risking capital in the 2022 type lending markets.
Voltage takes this further. We offer Bitcoin-based credit lines that allow businesses to leverage their payment flows to access working capital. Instead of pre-funding large amounts of capital upfront, businesses can qualify for credit based on the volume moving through their Lightning infrastructure.
This is a fundamentally different model than traditional financing. It’s non-custodial, it’s based on real payment activity, and it doesn’t require businesses to tie up capital that could be deployed elsewhere.
For institutions and high-volume operators, this means Lightning isn’t just a payment rail. It’s a capital-efficient treasury tool.
With the deployment of Taproot Assets, how do you foresee stablecoins integrating into the Lightning Network, and what impact will this have on Voltage’s services and broader use cases?
Taproot Assets is a game-changer. It allows assets like stablecoins to be issued directly on Bitcoin and transferred over Lightning rails. That means you get the stability of a dollar-denominated asset with the speed and finality of Lightning.
In 2025, Tether announced they’re bringing USDT to Lightning via Taproot Assets. That’s $140 billion in stablecoin supply gaining access to instant, near-zero-fee settlement on Bitcoin’s infrastructure.
For Voltage, this expands our addressable market significantly. Today, we serve businesses that want to move Bitcoin. Tomorrow, we serve any business that wants to move dollars instantly and globally, without the friction of traditional rails.
Think about what this means for iGaming, for remittances, for payroll, for cross-border commerce. Businesses get the stability they need for accounting and operations, but they settle on the fastest, cheapest rails available.
Our infrastructure is already positioned for this. The same managed nodes, the same APIs, the same enterprise guarantees. We’re simply adding the ability to move stablecoins alongside Bitcoin.
As the Lightning Network evolves into a multi-asset ecosystem, which forthcoming developments are you most excited about, and how is Voltage positioning itself to support this expansion?
Three things excite me most.
First, stablecoins on Lightning. I mentioned Taproot Assets and Tether. This is happening now, and it transforms Lightning from a Bitcoin-only network into multi-asset settlement infrastructure. The implications for global payments are enormous.
Second, protocol improvements like splicing and BOLT12. Splicing allows channels to be resized dynamically without closing them, which makes liquidity management far more efficient. BOLT12 introduces reusable payment requests and better privacy. These are the kinds of upgrades that make Lightning more robust for enterprise use.
Third, broader institutional adoption. We just powered the first publicly-reported million-dollar Lightning transaction. Secure Digital Markets moved $1 million to Kraken in under half a second. This wasn’t testnet. That’s real institutional value flowing over infrastructure we built. As more institutions see that proof, adoption accelerates.
How is Voltage preparing? We’re investing in infrastructure that scales. More node capacity, deeper liquidity, tighter integrations. When stablecoins go live on Lightning, when institutions come in force, we’ll be ready because we’ve been building for this moment for five years.
Demand for Lightning-based infrastructure continues to grow, could you share examples of how Voltage’s products are gaining traction, including metrics such as transaction volumes, customer adoption, or industry uptake?
Many exchanges across Coinbase, Chipper Cash, Cash App, and Kraken report in the range of 15-50% of all bitcoin transactions happening over lightning now. Majority of major top exchanges have lighting now with over 1 billion users with access to lightning network globally.
On the institutional side, we just powered the first publicly-reported seven-figure Lightning transaction. SDM moved $1 million to Kraken in under half a second, with near-zero fees. That’s a milestone for the entire network, and it happened on Voltage infrastructure. This validates that Lightning can send large payments, and with more adoption and liquidity, comes larger payments.
More broadly, Lightning capacity just hit an all-time high above 5,600 BTC, roughly $500 million. Transaction volume on the network surged 266% year over year in 2025. Major exchanges like Binance, OKX, and Kraken route withdrawals through Lightning. Cash App reported a sevenfold increase in Lightning usage in 2024.
Steak ‘n Shake integrated Lightning payments across all U.S. locations and reported a 50% reduction in processing fees within two weeks.
The pattern is clear. Businesses that integrate Lightning see immediate, measurable improvements in cost and speed. Our job at Voltage is to make that integration as simple as possible.
For digital wallets and neo-banks, how does Voltage’s API and infrastructure enhance user experience through instant settlement, predictable costs, and global reach?
Digital wallets and neo-banks compete on user experience. Speed, reliability, and cost are the differentiators. Lightning delivers all three, and Voltage makes it accessible.
Instant settlements. When a user sends or receives a payment, it should feel immediate. Lightning settles in milliseconds. No pending transactions, no three-day holds, no wondering if the money arrived. It’s there.
Predictable costs. On-chain Bitcoin fees fluctuate. Credit card fees are percentage-based and add up. Lightning fees are near-zero and don’t scale with transaction size. A $10 transfer costs the same as a $10,000 transfer. For wallets and neo-banks, that cost predictability simplifies pricing and protects margins.
Global reach. Lightning is permissionless. It doesn’t require banking partnerships in every country. If your user has a Lightning-enabled wallet, they can transact globally. That’s powerful for remittances, for cross-border commerce, for serving underbanked populations.
Voltage provides the API layer that lets wallets and neo-banks plug into all of this without running their own infrastructure. We handle the nodes, the liquidity, the uptime. They deliver the user experience.
What distinguishes Voltage from a security and compliance perspective, such as SOC 2 Type II and NMLS standards, and why are these credentials particularly important for financial institutions, exchanges, and payment service providers?
Regulated businesses can’t compromise on compliance and security. That’s table stakes for working with exchanges, PSPs, and financial institutions. Voltage is built to meet those requirements.
SOC 2 Type II certification means our systems, processes, and controls have been independently audited for security, availability, and confidentiality. It’s third-party verification that we operate at enterprise standards.
Beyond certifications, our infrastructure is designed with security at every layer. Managed nodes with guaranteed uptime. Non-custodial architecture where appropriate. Monitoring, alerting, and incident response built for enterprise environments.
For exchanges and PSPs, this matters because their regulators ask hard questions about every vendor in their stack. Voltage has the documentation, the certifications, and the track record to answer those questions.
