Overview
Konduit is an open-source payment tool that lets you pay Bitcoin Lightning invoices using ADA, the coin of the Cardano network. You open a private payment line with a service provider, then use it to settle bills quoted in Bitcoin without ever leaving your ADA behind. It acts as a pipe between two separate payment worlds, moving value from Cardano to Bitcoin's fast payment layer.
Konduit is built by Cardano Lightning, a group working to bring the speed of Bitcoin's Lightning Network to Cardano1. The Bitcoin Lightning Network is a second layer that sits on top of Bitcoin to make small payments fast and cheap. Konduit borrows the same trust-minimizing design so that a Cardano user can reach that network through a service provider who does the forwarding2.
Key Features
- Pay Bitcoin invoices with ADA. A payer scans a Bitcoin Lightning invoice, gets a price quoted in ADA, and settles it from a channel backed by their own ADA, with no manual currency conversion in between2.
- Funds stay backed by locked ADA. Each payment line is underwritten by ADA locked on the Cardano network, so the amount owed is always covered by real funds a provider can claim if needed2.
- Locks-and-secrets payment safety. Konduit uses the same method as the Bitcoin Lightning Network, where no party can receive money without first sending it onward, and the protocol is designed to keep balances safe even if a payment stops partway2.
- Open by design. The protocol code is published under an open-source license, with the on-chain logic written in Aiken and the surrounding tools in Rust, so anyone can inspect how it works3.
- Settle anytime, close anytime. A payer can top up the payment line and a provider can draw down what they are owed at any point, and either side can close the channel and settle the final balance on Cardano2.
What to Expect
A visitor to Konduit finds a working web app and a plain explanation of how a payment moves through three stages: opening a channel by locking ADA, paying an invoice through a service provider, and closing the channel to settle up1. The experience centers on two roles. A Consumer is the everyday user who wants to pay a Bitcoin Lightning bill, and an Adaptor is the service provider who runs the Bitcoin side and forwards the payment onward2.
There is no separate token, since everything runs on ADA. Developers can read the source code and the published tooling reference on GitHub, while non-technical visitors can follow the step-by-step explainer on the main site to understand what the protocol does before trying the app3.
