Bitcoin Lightning App Strike Expands to Europe with Global Transfers

Bitcoin payments app Strike announces its launch in Europe, bringing bitcoin buying, selling, and transfers to millions.

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The Bitcoin Law Announcement Was A Special Day In History

Jack Mallers announcing Bukele’s Bitcoin Law was a momentous occasion in history, not only for Bitcoin and El Salvador, but for the entire world.

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How Bitcoin Found Its Purpose At Oslo Freedom Forum

At this year’s Oslo Freedom Forum, we learned why the monetary system enabled by Bitcoin is so important.

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Bitcoin 2022: Welcome To The Revolution

One plebs journey across the largest Bitcoin event of all time, finding signal and the pulse of an ongoing revolution.

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Walmart, Mcdonald’s, and Thousands of Other Stores to Accept Bitcoin Via Strike’s Lightning Network 

Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced Walmarts, McDonald’s, and 400,000 other stores will now accept Bitcoin payments via Lightning Network

Continue reading Walmart, Mcdonald’s, and Thousands of Other Stores to Accept Bitcoin Via Strike’s Lightning Network  at DailyCoin.com.

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Strike Brings The Lightning Network To Every US Merchant. The Market Yawns

The Strike announcement was an atomic bomb, but the market is not impressed. Since Jack Mallers wasn’t there to reveal an Apple deal as rumored, the general public was somewhat disappointed. However, the Strike CEO announced something much bigger. The company partnered with Blackhawk and NCR to bring Lightning Network transactions to Point Of Sale terminals all over the United States. Plus, with Shopify for the e-commerce equivalent.  The man was playing third-dimensional chess with us. Mallers titled the presentation “The King’s Gambit,” an alternative to the “pawn to e4” chess opening he usually mentions. Here’s the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD2-T7TX2rk Inside Strike ‘s Announcement The presentation started with a brief history of payment networks, starting in 1949 with the invention of the Diner’s Club card. The first revelation comes next: payment networks have not evolved or innovated in 50 years. The legacy financial system is still using this ancient technology like there’s no tomorrow.  These merchants are adopting Bitcoin for payment this year. (Jack Ballers – Strike). pic.twitter.com/FF57vYF7BH — Big Sky HODL ?? CO Beef Initiative (@BigSky_HODL) April 7, 2022 As usual, Strike’s Jack Mallers proposes to the world that it should join an “open payment standard.” That it should use a “superior payment network.“ And with these partnerships, he finally accomplishes it. Strike will use the bitcoin network as payment rails to enable Lightning Network transactions in a high percentage of merchants in the US. According to Mallers, bitcoin will finally be “embedded into our lives.” Another interesting part of the story is Senator Cynthia Lummis’ support. According to a letter she sent to Mallers, she says “I am working to bring smart legislation to the digital assets space, so that innovations like this can be integrated into America’s financial services industry.“ That’s reassuring. Because chances are legacy players will fight this.  thank you @jackmallers. you're an incredible inspiration. — jack?? (@jack) April 7, 2022 The senator will speak tomorrow, on Bitcoin 2022’s final day of conference.  BTC price chart for 04/08/2022 on Oanda | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com How Did The News Affect The Market? The general public was expecting Strike to announce an Apple partnership that would’ve made bitcoin’s price pump to infinity. It didn’t get it. So, bitcoin traded around the $43K range the whole day and acted unaffected in front of Jack Mallers’ news. It seems like the market didn’t even flinch.  What @jackmallers just announced is going to kick off the #Bitcoin circular economy in a massive way. I think few understand that the inability to easily use BTC is what makes it difficult to accept as a daily driver. Medium of exchange is here. Next stop, Unit of Account. — Guy Swann ?? (@TheGuySwann) April 7, 2022 More nuanced than an Apple partnership, it will take months, maybe years to see the new’s impact. On the one hand, people aren’t incentivized to spend their bitcoin. As long as its price is increasing, people will want to hold the asset. On the other, this provides a non-KYC way to spend your bitcoin. A non-KYC way of paying. The Strike announcement makes bitcoin a competing Medium of Exchange and puts it into every store in the US. Is that fact priced in?  What Does The Twitterati Think About Strike ‘s News?  The Guy Swann sums up the announcement by declaring it’ll “kick off the Bitcoin circular economy in a massive way. I think few understand that the inability to easily use BTC is what makes it difficult to accept as a daily driver.” For his part, podcaster Anthony Pompliano said, “Hundreds of millions of people can now spend bitcoin or dollars across the Lightning Network instantaneously, completely for free at every major US retailer.” Strike CEO @jackmallers and Strike just announced partnerships with Shopify and other leading payment providers. Hundreds of millions of people can now spend bitcoin or dollars across the Lightning Network instantaneously, completely for free at every major US retailer. — Pomp ?? (@APompliano) April 7, 2022 In a phenomenal thread, Economist Lyn Alden explains the implications. “The more places that accepted BTC at point of sale (on-chain or Lightning or otherwise), the more permissionless the whole network is. This is because, if all you can do with BTC is convert it back into fiat on a major exchange, then it’s easy to isolate it, effectively blacklist addresses, etc.” This is because, if all you can do with BTC is convert it back into fiat on a major exchange, then it's easy to isolate it, effectively blacklist addresses, etc. But if you can directly spend it on goods and services across companies and jurisdictions, it's harder to isolate. — Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact) April 7, 2022 On the other hand, notorious YouTuber Bitboy Crypto misses the point completely and says. “Michael Saylor: Never Sell your Bitcoin (crowd goes WILD) Jack Mallers: Here’s a great way to spend your Bitcoin (Crowd goes WILD) Like does no one see the disconnect here?”  Michael Saylor: Never Sell your Bitcoin (crowd goes WILD) Jack Mallers: Here’s a great way to spend your Bitcoin (Crowd goes WILD) Like does no one see the disconnect here? — Ben Armstrong (@Bitboy_Crypto) April 7, 2022 Matt Ahlborg, head of research at Bitrefil, gives Bitboy the 411. “What Jack Mallers is really saying is that you will be soon be able to offload your Bitcoins in the real world without KYC’ing through an exchange first.” While Jack Dorsey keeps it short and sweet by saying, “thank you Jack Mallers. you’re an incredible inspiration.” What Jack Mallers is really saying is that you will be soon be able to offload your Bitcoins in the real world without KYC'ing through an exchange first. If this is true, it is actually an extremely substantive and important development for Bitcoin. — Matt Ahlborg (@MattAhlborg) April 7, 2022 The whole world changed after that Strike announcement. It might feel similar, but we’re living in bitcoin world now. Make of that what you will.  Featured Image: Jack Mallers at Bitcoin 2022 taken from this tweet | Charts by TradingView Bitcoinist @ Bitcoin 2022 Miami Bitcoinist will be at Bitcoin 2022 Miami in Miami Beach, FL from April 6th through 10th reporting live from the show floor and related events. Check out exclusive coverage from the world’s largest BTC conference here.

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Lightning to strike Shopify merchants with addition of BTC payments

Jack Mallers announced the new integration today at the Bitcoin 2022 conference and hopes to give more people access to what he sees as a better monetary system.

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Jack Mallers’ Strike Integrating With World’s Largest PoS Providers To Enable Sovereign Payments With Bitcoin

Maller’s announcements all centered around increasing accessibility to the superior payment system of Bitcoin.

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Rumor Mill: Bitcoin + Apple? Bitcoin 2022 Conference Hints

Rumors swirl around Apple, Bitcoin, and Jack Mallers’ Strike. Covered: Bitcoin 2022 Jack Mallers and Strike Upcoming Apple iPhone Feature Bitcoin 2022 The upcoming Bitcoin 2022 Conference, the annual event of all things Bitcoin, is generating buzz, and rumors abound. The conference begins in two days and is the perfect time to drop green-candle-inducing bombshells. […]

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Strike wallet is 5th most popular finance app in Argentina, but where’s the BTC?

“The best monetary network in human history is here, it's open, and will disrupt the world quicker than anyone thinks. Open networks win,” said Strike CEO Jack Mallers.

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Lightning Speed 004: What’s The Lightning Development Initiative?

There’s no denying that 2021 was the Lightning Network’s year. What does the future hold, though? If the objective is to onboard the next billion people, the network needs work and fine-tuning. To grab the bull by the horns, The Human Rights Foundation and Strike set up three 1 BTC bounties.  The bounties will go to the first person or team to develop an anonymous Lightning tip jar, a tokenless way to peg BTC to dollars, or a privacy-focused wallet that supports some kind of Chaumian e-cash feature. In a Twitter Spaces conversation about the program, they named it The Lightning Development Initiative.  A catchy name that we’ll use from now on to refer to all of this. This fourth edition of Lightning Speed is all about the future. Let’s explore the three ideas and the new information that we have about each of them. The Lightning Development Initiative In Twitter Spaces Among the speakers were Strike’s Jack Mallers, The Human Rights Foundation’s Alex Gladstein, Bitcoin Magazine’s Christian Keroles AKA CK Snarks, and Tales From The Crypt’s Matt Odell. It took place on December 29th and Bitcoin Magazine hosted it. A Twitter user named Gigi summarized it for us. ?? A thread summarizing the Lightning Développement Initiative Space ?? 3 amazingly interesting topic related to the bounties were discussed. I'm so bullish on Lightning? it hurts. Very grateful to have these people on our side ???? let's look at my notes ?? pic.twitter.com/PRs9cohPaN — Gigi ????? (@GuerillaV2) December 29, 2021 Bounty #1: An Anonymous Tip Jar In our sister site Bitcoinist’s report, they described the challenge as follows: “Can you create a Lightning tip jar that doesn’t reveal any information about the parties involved? That’s the first task. How to receive completely anonymous donations. According to Bitcoin Mag, the “goal is to enable anyone to use free and open-source software (FOSS) to print a QR code that can be used for receiving Lightning payments privately. Importantly, “The QR code should not reveal the public key or IP address of the user.”  In the Lightning Development Initiative’s report, we learned that this has to do with the two competing protocols, Bolt12 and lnurl. Jack Mallers “pointed out the absolute need for interoperability on the Lightning Network and that even though lnurl might not be “optimal” right now, the market will eventually decide what open standard they prefer to use. He thinks that currently UX is a major focus for the Lightning community and we should make peace with the fact that there will be competition between solutions.” Rockstar pointed out that this debate around lnurl vs bolt12 will have huge implications for the future but that he's glad that there's now an active discussion on the matter. Jack added that contrary to the Bitcoin main chain, we can somewhat afford to fuck up on LN.. — Gigi ????? (@GuerillaV2) December 29, 2021 Mallers put forth another interesting idea, “contrary to the Bitcoin main chain, we can somewhat afford to f**k up on the Lightning Network. As long as the Bitcoin monetary policy is not threatened then we can freely fiddle on top of the protocol via Lightning.” BTC price chart for 01/14/2022 on Bitfinex | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com Bounty #2: Stablecoin On Lightning Without A Token Bitcoinist described this one as: “The second challenge seems to be even more difficult, at least on a conceptual level. The HRF and Strike want a wallet that enables “anyone to “peg” an amount of bitcoin to U.S. dollars without needing an exchange or another token.” That’s right, without a centralized entity. And relying only on sats and bitcoin.” Gigi summarizes why the world needs this: “The goal is to allow people to access dollars without a single point of failure. Further down the line, as Bitcoin becomes less volatile, these people can use btc, but until then there’s massive demand for holding value in dollars. The tether market cap is proof of this.” It serve an important humanitarian use case. We need to create the foundation for this new financial system.@Chris_Stewart_5 >> maybe it can be done with DLC's? Not using a token but rather something representing price exposure (think Eurodollar system). (oracles?) The END. — Gigi ????? (@GuerillaV2) December 29, 2021 Bounty #3: A Chaumian E-Cash Feature First of all, Investopedia defines Chaumian e-cash as: “eCash was a digital-based system that facilitated the transfer of funds anonymously. A pioneer in cryptocurrency, its goal was to secure the privacy of individuals that use the Internet for micropayments. eCash was created by Dr. David Chaum under his company, DigiCash, in 1990.“ So, once again, anonymity is the priority. As Alex Gladstein put it when announcing the bounties, they’re “for the first open-source, non-custodial, non-KYC Lightning wallets to ship features requested by dissidents worldwide.” Also, take into consideration the words of security expert Brian Trollz, “Bitcoin without privacy is nothing but a surveillance system.” Bitcoin without privacy is nothing but a surveillance system. — Shino (@brian_trollz) January 13, 2022 What does Gigi have for us on this topic? “We need a sort of Chaumian e-cash, extremely easy to use for the Plebs and accessible. Maybe the solution is a federated  one, making it harder to regulate.” He then quotes Jack Mallers again, “There’s going to be a singular standard for the internet of money (Bitcoin). Many will compete on top of BTC so we need “interoperability to the standard.” Matt: We need to make it very easy to use because experience shows us that if it's somewhat challenging (coinjoins etcc) people won't bother to protect their privacy (goddam idiot normies ??) — Gigi ????? (@GuerillaV2) December 29, 2021 Conclusion: The Future Is Bright Developers, teams, companies, anyone can earn the Lighting Development Initiative’s bounties. The non-profit OpenSats will serve as the judge. They are all open for the whole year. If by the end of 2022 no one has claimed them, the money will go to the Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund on January 1st. Which is fair. Especially considering they just gave 425 million Sats to these worthy organizations and individuals. For more information and details read Bitcoinist’s original report. Featured Image by Micah Tindell on Unsplash | Charts by TradingView

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BREAKING: Twitter set to integrate Bitcoin’s Lightning Network

Anthony Pompliano has just broken a major story via Twitter about…Twitter. The social media giant headed up by mega-bull Jack Dorsey is reportedly launching Bitcoin Lightning Network tipping functionality on iOS. BREAKING: Twitter is launching Bitcoin Lightning Network tipping functionality on iOS. — Pomp ?? (@APompliano) September 23, 2021 Interestingly, there already is a tipping […]

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Is BitGo Behind El Salvador’s Chivo Wallet? This Old School Mag Thinks So

Where did BitGo come from? In all of this time covering El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law, the name wasn’t in the picture. Now, all of a sudden, Forbes claims that BitGo’s technology is behind the controversial Chivo wallet. How and when did this happen? Or, more importantly, is this real news or a paid piece to take advantage of the “historic moment for cryptocurrency adoption.”  Related Reading | NewsBTC Crypto Trading Course. For FREE.99 Not to be conspiratorial, but Forbes’ tone in this whole piece has a press-release-feel to it. “For months, El Salvador has kept many of Chivo’s details under wraps with the nation’s 40-year-old president, Nayib Bukele, teasing the wallet’s launch on Twitter just last week. However, Forbes has learned El Salvador appears to have tapped cryptocurrency unicorn BitGo to provide Chivo’s wallet infrastructure and security platform, making the Palo Alto, Calif-based startup the nation’s exclusive hot-wallet provider in a historic moment for cryptocurrency adoption.” What’s all this about “cryptocurrency unicorn BitGo” and “the nation’s exclusive hot-wallet provider in a historic moment”? Is this the appropriate vocabulary for a legacy media publication like this one? The most worrying sentence, however, is “Forbes has learned El Salvador appears to have tapped…” They’re not committing to anything here. It “appears” this way, but nothing is certain. BTC price chart for 09/07/2021 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com What Does BitGo Say About The Announcement? Not El Salvador’s government, nor Strike commented on the Forbes piece. They did get a quote from Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, who said: “Digital assets look so different from what we’ve seen with other types of money, and so people wonder about how [they] fit in, but this is an opportunity to build financial freedom for the people of El Salvador” says BitGo CEO Mike Belshe, speaking from his home in Silicon Valley on Saturday. “The ability to send money in a hurry on a Saturday night, when banks are closed, across the planet and at almost no fees, it’s hard to put into words how empowering that is, and what we’ll see in El Salvador is, people will start figuring it out.”  Did Belshe confirm the news? Is BitGo behind the Chivo App? He talks about “an opportunity to build financial freedom for the people of El Salvador.” So yeah, assuming Belshe was talking about this specific rumor, he seems to confirm the news. Indirectly. In a non-comital way. To make things worse, the article ends presenting BitGo as their own marketing material would: “Founded in 2013, BitGo has grown into one of the biggest cryptocurrency wallet companies in the world, raising more than $70 million in funding from investors including…” Let’s Remember, What Did Strike Say About The Subject? Strike’s Jack Mallers has met with the Bukeles, announced El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption, and the company has an office at Bitcoin Beach. Everyone was assuming that the technology behind the Chivo wallet was going to be Strike’s. However, if we go back to the interview in which Mallers told the whole story, our sister site Bitcoinist quotes him saying: “There’s no commercial agreement between Strike and the government of El Salvador. “In fact, I advised and gave my opinion of the opposite. The economies of scale and network effects associated with open networks are so powerful. Just by plugging in to them you’re going to get the freemarket competition that every country would die for.” Related Reading | Tomorrow, The Community Will Buy $30 In BTC To Support El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law Did President Bukele take his advice and went with another company? Can we trust Forbes even if it sounds like a copy-and-pasted press release? Is BitGo’s technology behind the Chivo Wallet? We will know for sure very soon. Featured Image by Chräcker Heller from Pixabay - Charts by TradingView

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Strike CEO Jack Mallers Announces Expansion of Services into Africa

Strike Africa will be available in several African markets, with plans for further expansion in the future.

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Japan PM not ready to talk about Bitcoin national reserve: Report

The Japanese prime minister said it is difficult for the government to express its views on implementing a Bitcoin strategic reserve.

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Jack Mallers New Video About Bitcoin Scarcity is Right on the Money!

Jack Mallers reveals why Bitcoin isn't just an inflation hedge but the ultimate financial solutionhighlighting its unmatched scarcity in a world where everything else multiplies like rabbits.

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