Strike raises $80M to enable instantaneous bitcoin payments for merchants

BLOCKCHAIN

Strike, a digital payments service that uses bitcoin’s Lightning Network to provide instant payments, said today that it has raised $80 million to make everyday payments swift and easy for consumers.

The Series B funding round was led by Ten31, a crypto-focused venture capital firm, and joined by Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Wyoming.

With the new funding, Strike Chief Executive Jack Mallers said, he’s taking aim at major credit card networks and payments infrastructure by changing how money moves. The new funds will be used to expand current partnerships and inking integrations with payments networks around the world.

“We’re moving full speed ahead not just to integrate Strike’s revolutionary payments with leading merchants, but globally, with a variety of businesses and partners to innovate and deliver on more financial inclusion,” Mallers said.

The new funding comes after the public launch of Strike’s application programming interface that enables any merchant, payment network or financial institution to integrate into its payment solution.

Using Strike’s capabilities, it’s possible to transact in smaller denominations of the bitcoin cryptocurrency using the Lightning Network, with lower fees and at “lightning”-fast speeds. The objective of the Lightning Network’s and Strike’s technology is to permit purchases at the merchant level such as a cup of coffee or a T-shirt, which might be prohibitive for most bitcoin transactions with normal fees and wait times.

“Every company that’s in the business of moving money is interested in superior payments, and we’re in talks with many of them,” Mallers said. ‘It doesn’t get any bigger and more exciting than innovating in payments for the betterment of the world.”

Initial partners for Strike’s payment system include e-commerce platforms such as Blackhawk, NCR and Shopify. For most consumers, the integration is easy and simple and works with many bitcoin wallets using the Lightning Network, including more than 70 million Cash App users.

As for the next stage of its product, Strike plans to release tools that will enable financial institutions to integrate Strike’s payments infrastructure without the need to build in-house solutions. This would enable them to create instance cross-border remittance solutions.

“Businesses and institutions want a groundbreaking experience sending payments as well,” Mallers said. “We can empower businesses to move money in ways networks such as card networks and SWIFT can’t, and we pay these partners in the form of commissions to do so, which makes it an exciting innovation for everyone. We’ve seen a lot of demand here.”

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