Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, announced partnerships with Shopify, Blackhawk and NCR at the Bitcoin 2022 conference. This integration marks a huge milestone for Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Lightning network! NCR is one of the largest POS providers in the world and serves hundreds of international merchants or retail chains such as Starbucks, Shell or Walmart with their payment system. Blackhawk is an international gift card and pre-paid card manufacturer, and Shopify hosts countless online shops.
Our Bitcoin Key Account Manager Matthias was there for the announcement and wrote down a few thoughts.
"Strike CEO Jack Mallers announces the great revolution based on the most decentralised "value transmission network" Bitcoin and almost nobody seems to care? Therefore, I would like to explain here in detail how the announcement is to be understood from my point of view.
The image below shows the possibility of currently being able to pay DIRECTLY as a Strike or Cash App customer with IMMEDIATE value credit for the DEALER at currently approx. 30 major companies, e.g. Spotify, Walmart or McDonalds.
In plain language, this means: Customer sends USD 100 in FIAT OR Bitcoin to pay for a product or service and the trader/entrepreneur is immediately credited the invoice amount without exchange rate risk.
Advantages for the company:
This is made possible by a cooperation with the largest POS and payment service provider in the USA: NCR.
Why do I really think this is a revolution? For the first time, the Bitcoin network would be able to transmit MILLIONS of transactions with value in seconds via its own 2nd layer solution, the Lightning network --> in the end, we can practically talk about MILLIONS of transactions here as well.
With this action, the rise to a worldwide peer-to-peer electronic cash system CAN succeed. Satoshi Nakamoto's vision would have become reality!
And how? It's called Sogeffekt: Robinhood and Kraken have also announced the implementation of Lightning and have already implemented it - 1,000 other companies will follow. The advantages are obvious with the direct value credit and defacto zero costs.
I am really looking forward to the reaction of Visa, Amex and Mastercard - or the many big banks with their own credit card solutions. Competition is finally stimulating business here. The fees and the billing cycles should hopefully shorten considerably and thus more money will stay with the merchant!
What is your opinion? Payment revolution or tempest in a Bitcoin teapot?
Best regards
Your Matthias"
At the Bitcoin 2022 conference, there was a dedicated mining stage - so the relevance of this topic is obviously undisputed in the Bitcoin space.
"Sustainable Bitcoin mining is related to the future of human society, and the key lies in the construction of more advanced energy-efficient technologies and green mining infrastructure, as well as continued increase in the proportion of renewable energy use," said Edward Lu, senior vice president of Canaan (maker of the Bitcoin ASIC miners).
According to Lu, the 3 pillars of an environmentally friendly mining concept are:
Accordingly, there are already solutions for each of these areas. In order to use sustainable energy, there is, for example, the possibility of using geothermal energy, solar energy or hydropower for mining.
In terms of mining machines, Canaan has implemented some standards with the release of the brand new Avalon 1266 with the aim of sustainable mining and with the record 100 TH/S hashrate of the Avalon 1266, efficiency has also been increased considerably.
In terms of infrastructure, several large mining companies have already joined forces to form the Bitcoin Mining Council (BMC). Together they are trying to make mining operations and sites worldwide more efficient and environmentally friendly.
Blockstream also announced its partnership with Tesla at the conference and wants to build a new bitcoin mining facility with an investment of around USD 12 million. Tesla's solar and battery technology (Solar PV Array and Tesla Megapack) will be used exclusively.
Finally, we would like to show you a few photos of Thomas and Matthias at the conference - including selfies with Michael Saylor or JAN3 CEO Samson Mow. They also met Youtuber Debbi and Lina, the creator of the"Little Hodler".
