At Bitcoin 2023 in Miami Beach, global bitcoin payments service Strike announced that their service is now available in 65 more countries spread across six continents. This coincides with the introduction of the ability to receive funds in U.S. dollar equivalents, namely USDT. In addition, the app received a major facelift and overhaul that has made the UI cleaner, the UX friendlier and also includes a new logo.
Many of the countries that have been requested by users of Bitcoin Twitter are now able to instantly send and receive money utilizing the Lightning Network. In an interview with Strike’s VP of Product, Manuela Rios, she explained that the app now has an effective reach of 3 billion people.
“With Send Globally, the value prop is that you send dollars and receive as a local currency directly in a bank account on the other side … this one’s different — what we found through user research that people on the other side in jurisdictions with weak currencies would say ‘Hey this experience is amazing, but can I have a dollar equivalent?’”
In regards to purchasing Bitcoin, Rios said that “globally, you don’t see a seamless experience.” So the new Strike app also functions as a Lightning wallet where you can buy and sell bitcoin via dollar equivalent rails.
At his speech at Bitcoin 2023, Strike CEO Jack Mallers explained the wider vision of the updates, saying “We’re delivering a cash balance that the global south can rely on, and an awesome beautiful punk unconventional black and white brand, as the Fed is driving our own banks insolvent.”
He also highlighted the company’s response to feedback, displaying a set of tweets asking for LNURL support, shortly after announcing that the new app has LNURL support — all usernames@strike.me function as a LNURL as of the launch.
“We made a lot of product changes to support what we hope to become an amazing global money app,” Mallers said. “As a company, we know what we’re fighting for, we know who we are, we changed the way we looked, but we never changed the way we felt.”
In addition to the new features and access, the app includes a simplified sign-up process in order to make signing up easier. “The end goal for us is to serve 7-8 billion people, and we’ll be stepping our way to make it to the countries that didn’t make it in this MVP,” Rios explained.
Rios explained the impact of the launch and additional features, saying that “For the Bitcoiners, you can expect a beautiful Lightning wallet and a cost effective way to buy bitcoin, and for the people not yet so familiar with bitcoin, but are familiar with 109% inflation, giving them access to a U.S. dollar equivalent stablecoin is massive — now you can save in something that won’t be so quickly devalued.”
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