Former PayPal President Marcus Predicts Bitcoin’s Future Boom

In a striking recent interview, David Marcus — the former president of PayPal and current CEO of Lightspark — boldly declared that Bitcoin may one day “process trillions of dollars every single day.” Marcus’s comments are reverberating through the worlds of finance and cryptocurrency alike, sparking fresh debate about Bitcoin’s role in the global payment ecosystem.

Bitcoin as an “Open Money Network”

Marcus is firmly of the view that Bitcoin is not merely a speculative asset, but rather the foundation of an open-money network on the internet. He believes that Bitcoin’s architecture already gives it the potential to serve as a settlement system for global transactions in real time, at very low cost. He stated plainly that one day Bitcoin could be moving trillions of dollars per day across its network. This is a dramatic claim, given the current scale of many traditional payment systems. To put that in context: global payment networks such as SWIFT handle around US $5 trillion each day, and Visa Inc. processes about US $33 billion daily. Marcus argues that Bitcoin, with its evolving infrastructure, could eventually eclipse those figures.

Why Marcus Believes the Infrastructure Is Ready

A key driver of Marcus’s optimism is the ascent of the Lightning Network — a second-layer protocol built on top of Bitcoin that enables faster and cheaper transactions. Marcus emphasised that while legacy payment networks can be expensive and slow, Lightning offers near-instant transfers with minimal cost. He sees this as the mechanism by which Bitcoin can scale to global-settlement level. According to industry sources, by 2023 the Lightning Network already had over 20,000 active nodes and showed a capacity increase of approximately 3,000 %. That scale of growth supports the idea that Bitcoin’s network can expand dramatically. Marcus’s firm, Lightspark, provides APIs and SDKs that enable developers to integrate Lightning-enabled Bitcoin payments within applications — thereby accelerating adoption in payments, remittances, and other transaction-heavy use cases.

Shift from Speculation to Utility

Another pillar of Marcus’s thesis is the transition of Bitcoin from being primarily a speculative investment asset to becoming part of real financial infrastructure. He points out that institutional investment inflows are increasing, regulatory clarity has improved in key markets, and Bitcoin’s market capitalisation is now around US $1.3 trillion. Daily on-chain transaction volumes are ranging between US $15 billion and US $20 billion. Marcus sees this evolving trust from institutions as a key enabler of Bitcoin’s shift into a settlement layer rather than simply a “store of value.”

Stablecoins, Tokenisation and Bitcoin’s Utility Layer

Marcus also highlights the role of stablecoins and asset tokenisation in unlocking Bitcoin’s utility. He considers that stablecoins issued on the Bitcoin network — using protocols such as Stacks and RGB — combined with the Lightning Network, could underpin high-volume, low-cost, global payment flows. In effect, the model Marcus describes is one where Bitcoin serves as the neutral settlement layer, with stablecoins (which offer price stability) riding on top, and payments flowing via Lightning. In this model, millions of transactions per second could become feasible. He further notes that the Bitcoin network’s hash rate reached all-time highs in 2025 — boosting security and reliability — which helps bolster the argument for Bitcoin’s readiness as a global infrastructure.

Final Thoughts

In summary, David Marcus’s vision places Bitcoin not just as a speculative asset, but as the backbone of a future global payment and settlement system. His assertion that Bitcoin could one day process trillions of dollars every day may seem bold—but with the growth of the Lightning Network, institutional adoption, and infrastructure maturation, the possibility is worth serious attention. Of course, there are still significant hurdles — regulatory, technical, user-experience, and competitive. But the transition from “store of value” to “utility layer” for Bitcoin is gathering momentum. For emerging markets in particular, this shift could open new pathways for cheaper, faster, more inclusive finance. Whether Bitcoin ultimately achieves the scale Marcus predicts remains to be seen. But his message is clear: the infrastructure momentum is real — and the world of payments might be on the verge of a seismic transformation.

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