The adoption of Bitcoin into the mainstream – not only as a store of value but also as a means of payment – took a big step today. As CEO of Strike Jack Mallers declare via Twitter, the Bitcoin Lightning Network went live yesterday with Clover.
On Twitter, Mallers announced that Strike is now an integrated partner with payments giant Fiserv, Clover’s parent company. As a result, Strike has launched a pilot integration with Clover that will allow merchants to accept Bitcoin payments via the Lightning Network.
Strike is officially an integrated partner of the payment giant Fiserv and we have launched a public pilot with the Clover point-of-sale terminal! Clover traders can now receive cheaper, faster, cash-final USD via Lightning.
As Mallers explained, this is not an integration of the company’s own Strike, but of the Lightning Network. “Anyone can use any service to checkout at an active merchant. From App Cash to the node through Tor. If you can make Lightning payments, you can use it,” said CEO Strike.
Initially, this was a 90-day pilot phase. Starting immediately, interested Clover merchants can enable payments via Lightning. This means that not all Clover merchants will be activated automatically.
However, during the test phase, partners will measure and track settlement speed and cost compared to other networks. After the pilot phase, the Bitcoin Lightning integration will be rolled out to the Clover App Store and will be integrated directly into Clover.
“This will enable Lightning as the accepted payment network for all Clover merchants by default, sitting next to card networks like Visa and MasterCard,” Mallers announced and further stated:
Ultimately, this payments giant wants to see Lightning in action. They want to feel it, touch it, and see people use it. An open, fast, low-cost, inclusive, and innovative payment network looks great. It’s time to share Lightning as the world’s leading payment rail.
Yes.
Lightning lives with Clover.
Strike is officially an integrated partner of the payment giant @Fiserv and we have launched a public pilot with it @CloverCommerce point-of-sale terminal!
Clover traders can now receive cheaper, faster, cash-final USD via Lightning.
🚀⚡️🍀 pic.twitter.com/o1GQg1xw5o
– Jack Mallers (@jackmallers) January 26, 2023
Why Is This Massive News For Bitcoin Adoption?
The Lightning Network is central to the adoption of Bitcoin as a payment method, and the Strike initiative plays an important role.
While Cash App has integrated the Lightning Network, Mallers announced many strong partnerships at the Bitcoin 2022 conference in Miami, including integration with e-commerce giant Shopify and NCR, the world’s largest provider of POS systems, as well as payment company Blackhawk. .
But today’s announcement by Mallers about its partnership with Fiserv and Clover is no small feat. Fiserv’s parent company is listed on the S&P 500 stock index and the NASDAQ-100 stock index.
Clover is a cloud-based point of sale (POS) platform for Android that was launched in April 2012 and has an impressive annual gross payment volume of $233 billion. As Mallers mentioned, Bitcoin Lightning can compete alongside Visa and Mastercard for this transaction volume.
At press time, BTC is at $22,965, registering a 0.1% drop in price over the last 24 hours.
Featured images from Vadim Artyukhin/Unsplash, Charts from TradingView.com