Lightning developer and Zap Inc. founder Jack Mallers announced his startup's Strike product on Thursday, which allows people to receive dollar bitcoins via direct bank deposits and is finally entering public beta.
A Visa card is also being processed
"Zap, Inc. has joined Visa's Fast Track program," Mallers said in an email about the startup plan for 2020. "Visa works with members of the Fast Track program to help them enter the market as efficiently as possible. by providing them with support and resources at every stage of the process. "
He said his main focus this year is launching a Strike card for consumer app users and integrating Visa Direct into the consumer app, which is the program that makes Venmo payments so fast. There is still no date for the upcoming Strike card.
"They [Visa] are a partner in our consumer issue offering and are not involved in our business offering at all," added Mallers.
Visa seems to double partnerships with cryptocurrency companies this year. For example, the Fold Shopping Rewards app (also a Fast Track member) and Coinbase exchange both offer matching Visa cards.
These are generally used by supporters of cryptocurrencies who prefer to earn crypto prizes rather than other types of points. There are also cryptographic debit cards, which allow people to spend dollars. It remains to be seen what specific options will be available to Zap cardholders in 2020. Visa confirmed the deal, but did not offer any additional comments as of press time.
A fragmentary approach
Although Jack Dorsey's Cash app and the Coinbase exchange are widely considered to be the most popular apps for buying and selling bitcoins, Mallers is looking to offer an app of the same caliber, at a fraction of the cost.
Mallers said his startup, which already has several people on staff, will take a threefold approach to the recession. To get started, Strike offers each user a public website where people can send bitcoins by simply scanning a QR code. This is comparable to what Ethereum's Name Service offers with .ETH public portfolio addresses.
However, Zap's Strike is not a crypto wallet. On the contrary, the startup makes an exchange on the back end and sends dollars to the user's account. "Traditional tax rules would apply to the financial transaction, and the exchange would bear the taxable cost of selling bitcoins, not the individual," said DLT Law Group's attorney Sasha Hodder in an interview, describing a potential benefit of the installation of Strike.
Strike's Tyler said he hopes the service "will allow merchants to accept and use bitcoins with Lightning without their customers knowing or spending bitcoins."
"This app allows me to interface with Lightning easily," said Tyler, observing how the scaling solution works silently in the background. Let us know in the comments how you think of invest in cryptographic coins!
