Welcome to Chain Reaction. This podcast delves deep into celebrity stories, backgrounds and breaking news in the crypto industry.
For this week’s episode, Jacqueline We interviewed Jack Mallers, founder and CEO of Strike, a Bitcoin-based payments network and financial app looking to expand the reach of the cross-border payments and remittances market.
Last year, Mallers’ company raised $80 million in Series B funding to get into that space, and now counts big names like Visa, Clover, and Fiserv among its partners.
“I think it’s about meeting consumers where they are and solving problems for them,” says Mallers.
Mallers is also CEO of Zap, a Bitcoin investment and payments company that trades on the Lightning Network, the second layer of Bitcoin’s blockchain that enables off-chain transactions between parties.
“We are in the business of bitcoin, but we don’t care about the price,” Mullers said. “We use Bitcoin and the Lightning Network for payments, so we are actually using a tool called Bitcoin to move value around the world. Receive, spend and receive euros, spend and receive stablecoins.”
Mullers said the service works when bitcoin is at $1 or $1 million. The business does not rely on price, but “uses it as an innovation in the world of payments”.
We explore Mallers’ early life, how he entered the Bitcoin scene at a young age, whether the Lightning Network is better than the payment networks that currently exist, and how large players have become We discussed whether we could enter this field. This episode focused heavily on Bitcoin, so keep it tight.
We will also work on:
- Global Possibilities of Lightning Network
- Bitcoin adoption in El Salvador
- Creating new infrastructure to make Bitcoin more accessible
- The Future of Strike and the Bitcoin Ecosystem
“I think Lightning will act as the Earth’s single value transfer protocol,” Mullers said. “But as we evolve earlier in this journey, I think the easiest thing to achieve is how we get financial value across the globe. So start there and focus there. I do.”
Chain Reaction will be published every other Thursday at 12:00 PM PT. Stay up to date on web3 and crypto by subscribing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform.
