Strike CEO Jack Mallers has announced its partnership with NCR, Shopify, and Blackhawk Network, and also declared integration with e-commerce giant Shopify. This collaboration will bring Bitcoin Lightning payments to major merchants. U.S. Shopify merchants can now receive bitcoin payments from customers globally as U.S. dollars.
This newest partnership is a massive step towards the mass adoption of Bitcoin. According to Mallers, any website that uses Shopify online card transactions can now process payments using Bitcoin’s Lightning network.
Moreover, online merchants that use Shopify can accept payment and receive it instantly without the 1949 boomer network, with no intermediary, or 3% fee.
At the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, Mallers also said his King’s Gambit would bring Bitcoin back to its payments roots. He added – “If we can help make the Bitcoin network more accessible and usable we believe we can change the world” and Leveraging Bitcoin as a cheap payments network is essential to do so.
Strike’s integration will allow Shopify merchants to diversify their existing payment options and reach untapped global markets and purchasing power. With this, Shopify merchants can generate savings through low-cost payment processing.
The integration removes certain complications merchants face in holding bitcoin. Now, they can instantly convert Bitcoin (BTC) payments to dollars.
During the presentation at the conference, a slide appeared in which the biggest retailers in America were listed including McDonald’s, Walmart, Best Buy, and Home Depot. It’s unclear when and how these retailers will start accepting Bitcoin. However, Maller claims that over 400,000 storefronts will now accept Bitcoin via the Lightning network.
The service will be accessible to any consumer within a global Lightning Network-enabled wallet, including more than 70 million CashApp users. At the conference, Robinhood also announced its plan to add the Bitcoin Lightning Network to its platform. It also declared the roll out of crypto wallets to every eligible person on the Wenwallets waitlist.
