Bitcoin Payments Company Strike Raises $80 Million in Series B

Bitcoin payments company Strike has raised $80 million in a Series B funding round. 

Venture capital firm Ten31, which focuses on Bitcoin companies, led the round but Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Wyoming, also took part, according to a Tuesday announcement. 

The cash will be used to grow Stike’s partnerships with merchants. 

Strike uses the Lightning Network, a solution that works to speed up Bitcoin transactions so the cryptocurrency can be used to make everyday purchases. 

“Every company that’s in the business of moving money is interested in superior payments, and we’re in talks with many of them,” Strike founder and CEO Jack Mallers said in a statement. 

Strike added that it plans to release new product lines with the funding for new types of customers, such as large financial institutions and businesses.

Major e-commerce companies like Blackhawk, NCR, and Shopify have integrated Strike’s app. 

Strike made headlines when it became El Salvador’s partner for its Bitcoin project. El Salvador last year became the first country in the world to recognize Bitcoin as legal tender. 

Strike helped install infrastructure for Salvadorans to spend their cryptocurrency by making a Bitcoin wallet available in the country. Mallers was a cheerleader for El Salvador’s Bitcoin Law

The idea, according to Mallers, was that Salvadorans would use Bitcoin and the Lightning Network for things like remittance payments and cut costs. 

But many Salvadorans have stopped using Bitcoin or never really used it in the first place, according to various reports—despite the government releasing its own wallet for citizens and giving them free cryptocurrency.