Strike’s Jack Mallers revealed in Miami that Bitcoin will be available to over 400,000 stores and all US Shopify sites over the Lightning Network.
The founder of Zap, Jack Mallers, is returning Bitcoin back to its roots. He announced that Shopify, NCR, and Blackhawk Network have partnered with his Lightning Network wallet, Strike.
Any website that accepts Shopify online card transactions can now process payments using Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, according to Mallers. Moreover, the collaboration is online right now, and it’s a huge step toward Bitcoin’s broad adoption.
Without the 1949 boomer network, any online business using Shopify may receive payments. They can get it right now, in cash, with no middleman and no 3 percent fee.
A slide came during the presentation that listed some of America’s largest stores, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Home Depot, and Best Buy. Blackhawk and NCR, according to their websites, also serve Starbucks, Chipotle, El Corte Ingles, and tens of thousands of other international shops.
Users will have to wait for additional information to learn when and how some of these merchants will take Bitcoin. However, according to Maller, the Lightning Network will now accept Bitcoin at nearly 400,000 locations.
The Network Adoption
The Lightning Network has been integrated by Robinhood, Kraken, and Bitpay in recent weeks. The Lightning Network is a Bitcoin layer two solution that employs smart contracts to settle payments instantly and with low fees.
Rather than focusing primarily on Bitcoin’s role as digital gold, it promotes its use as a digital currency. Bitcoin has received a lot of attention as an inflation hedge and a gold competitor.
On the other hand, Bitcoin can now scale to compete with any fiat currency on the planet thanks to the Lightning Network. It’s difficult to compete with instant payment settlement at close to 0% fees.
Moreover, Maller has just taken a major step forward in the adoption of cryptocurrency as a daily payment option. Mallers’ presentation has received a lot of positive feedback, including from Twitter’s Jack Dorsey.
Mallers was a harsh opponent of the existing banking system, claiming that it lacked innovation. Since 1949, there hasn’t been a better payments network that allows users to innovate, expand financial inclusion, and provide cheaper, faster services. His granddad, he claimed, utilized the same technology as him.
Retailers would be able to accept Bitcoin from clients and instantaneously convert it to fiat currency, according to his presentation. According to Mallers, the currency in which the store intends to settle their payments “doesn’t matter.”
As of right now, the price of Bitcoin hasn’t reacted to this news. For many investors, it may appear to be too enormous and too wonderful to be true. Additionally, adoption of this scale isn’t something that happens overnight.
