Bye bye 2025, hello 2026. While the year was winding down, December didn’t take a holiday. It was another packed month for Breez, Bitcoin, and Lightning. Let’s dive in:

• 🎓 Welcome Class of Q4
• 👷‍♂️ A Great Time to Build
• ䷰ Stablecoins: Revolution Evolution
• ☕️ Lightning in the Wild
• 🎙️ Let’s Talk Breez

Welcome Class of Q4 🎓Welcome Class of Q4 🎓

2025 will be remembered by many as Lightning’s breakout year and we closed it out in style by welcoming twelve new partners to the Breez SDK.

In Q4, builders brought the SDK into crypto wallets, trading platforms, payroll, healthcare, and more. There was no single product category. That flexibility matters because it’s how bitcoin finds its way into every app.

Our Class of Q4 2025 included Bitnomi, Blockschmiede, Crinkl, DGEN Technologies, Flashnet, Garden, Hodle, Layerz Wallet, PaidIn, Quantum Vault, SOUND HSA, and Split Loyalty.

For builders everywhere, it couldn’t be clearer: it’s no longer a question of if Lightning belongs in your app. It’s when. And the next step is already obvious.

A Great Time to Build 👷‍♂️A Great Time to Build 👷‍♂️

December marked the final stretch of our global developer challenge, </time2build>.

Over the past few months, builders from all corners of the globe got involved. The end result was long-lasting integrations across merchant tools, social apps, event platforms, crypto wallets, and more.

We saw just about everything in the challenge. And to be honest, that was the point. Give developers the tools to build, and they won’t disappoint.

Stay tuned as our prize winners will be announced shortly.

Stablecoins: Revolution Evolution ䷰Stablecoins: Revolution Evolution ䷰

Stablecoins are having a moment.

They move fast, work globally, and have unlocked real utility. Roy’s latest piece for Bitcoin Magazine doesn’t argue with that. It acknowledges it, then points out what often gets missed: stablecoins improve how today’s system works rather than redefine it.

The piece lays out why stablecoins were inevitable, why they’ve scaled as quickly as they have, and where the tradeoffs start to matter. From there, Roy draws a clear line between two very different paths. One optimizes how money moves inside today’s system. The other is entirely different: value transfer without issuers, permission, or legacy constraints.

If you’re thinking about where we should be heading, this one’s worth a read.

Lightning in the Wild ☕️Lightning in the Wild ☕️

For this month’s Lightning in the Wild, we trekked to the West Coast to join Lightspark’s David Marcus buying an espresso.

He was using a freshly built demo app by Alex from the Lightspark team. He put it together in just “half a day”, despite not being an engineer and having never built an app before.

That’s how easy it is to build with the Breez SDK.

Let’s Talk Breez 🎙️Let’s Talk Breez 🎙️

December gave us plenty to talk about. So we did. Breez, Bitcoin, and Lightning. As usual.

First up, Danny joined Michael on The Bitcoin Way Podcast. On the show, he laid out a future where bitcoin becomes part of everyday apps by focusing on its utility: value transfer.

December also saw Roy’s talk at Arkade Activation Day in Lugano released. In the discussion alongside Francis from Bull Bitcoin and Gareth from Class of Q4 graduate LayerzWallet, the Breez CEO spoke about where the next generation of bitcoin-powered apps are headed.

That’s all for this month, folks.

Until then, remember: the best time to get into Lightning is now — it always has been.

See y’all next time ✌️