Strike
Buy, sell & send bitcoin with ultra-low fees, high limits, and smooth transactions.
Website: https://strike.me/
Cover Block
PUBLIC
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Strike |
| Tagline | Buy, sell and send bitcoin with ultra-low fees, high limits, and smooth transactions |
| Headquarters | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Founded | 2020 |
| Stage | Series B |
| Business Model | B2C (with emerging B2B payments layer) |
| Industry | Fintech / Bitcoin payments |
| Technology | Bitcoin Lightning Network |
| Geography | Global, with operations in the US, El Salvador, and Europe |
| Growth Profile | Venture scale |
| Funding Label | $50M+ (total disclosed approximately $80,000,000) |
Links
PUBLIC
- Website: https://strike.me/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinstrike
- Blog: https://strike.me/blog/
- Dashboard: https://dashboard.strike.me/login
Executive Summary
PUBLIC
Strike is a Chicago-based Bitcoin financial application built on the Lightning Network. It allows retail users to buy, sell, send, and pay with bitcoin at low cost. The company deserves investor attention because it is one of the few Western consumer fintechs that has shipped a working cross-border Bitcoin payments stack while also securing direct banking and licensing relationships [Strike.me][Strike Blog]. The company was founded in 2020 by Jack Mallers, who became publicly associated with El Salvador's 2021 adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender and used that moment to anchor Strike's brand around borderless money [Bitstamp Learn Center][Strike Blog].
The core product differentiation rests on Lightning-native rails, a tiered fee model that replaced spread-based pricing for US customers, and feature depth (Bill Pay, Cost Basis tracking, global buy) that pushes Strike beyond a pure exchange experience [Strike Blog]. Mallers' background is operator-led rather than career-fintech: his public record centers on Lightning protocol advocacy and the El Salvador rollout. Strike's executive bench is not extensively documented in public sources. Capital-wise, Strike disclosed an $80 million round announced in September 2022 led by Ten31, with participation from Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Wyoming, Valor Capital Group, and Kube VC [BusinessWire, Sep 27, 2022][CoinDesk, Sep 2022]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the items worth tracking are European user growth following the April 2024 launch [BusinessWire, April 2024], whether the self-operated infrastructure stack translates into margin expansion, and how Strike navigates US regulatory posture toward Bitcoin payment intermediaries.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by BusinessWire, CoinDesk, and the company's own product disclosures.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series B |
| Business Model | B2C |
| Industry / Vertical | Fintech / Bitcoin payments |
| Technology Type | Blockchain / Lightning Network |
| Geography | Global, headquartered in the United States |
| Growth Profile | Venture scale |
| Funding | ~$80M disclosed |
Company Overview
PUBLIC
Strike was founded in 2020 by Jack Mallers and grew out of his earlier work on Zap, a Lightning Network wallet project. PitchBook continues to list the corporate entity under the legacy name Zap Solutions, headquartered at 200 North LaSalle Street, Suite 2650, Chicago, Illinois [PitchBook]. The company's origin narrative is tightly bound to El Salvador. Shortly after launch, Mallers and the early Strike team relocated operationally to El Salvador to support the country's adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender, an episode the company itself describes as the "first major milestone in becoming a global bitcoin money app for the world" [Strike Blog].
The milestone path since then has been steady rather than splashy. In September 2022, Strike announced an $80 million funding round led by Ten31, framed as fuel to expand merchant and consumer payment rails globally [BusinessWire, Sep 27, 2022][CoinDesk, Sep 2022]. In May 2023, Fortune reported that Strike had extended Bitcoin payment availability to 65 countries. In April 2024, the company launched its consumer app in Europe [BusinessWire, April 2024]. Across 2023 and 2024, Strike also rolled out Bill Pay, transitioned US pricing from spreads to transparent tiered fees, and shipped a Cost Basis tool to help US customers track unrealized gains and dispositions for tax purposes [Strike Blog].
A quieter but operationally important milestone is Strike's infrastructure migration. The company has stated that, after roughly two years of licensing work, it now serves customers directly on its own infrastructure and banking connectivity rather than relying on a third-party banking-as-a-service provider [Strike Blog]. For a Bitcoin-on-ramp business, owning the regulated stack is a meaningful structural choice that affects unit economics, geographic reach, and counterparty risk.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by BusinessWire, PitchBook, and Strike's own published infrastructure update.
Product and Technology
MIXED
Strike's core consumer surface is a mobile app that lets users buy, sell, hold, send, and receive bitcoin, with the Lightning Network used as the default settlement layer for low-value, low-fee transactions [PUBLIC][Strike.me]. On top of that base, the company has shipped a series of features that push the product closer to a primary financial account rather than a single-purpose exchange. Bill Pay lets US customers pay billers directly from a Strike balance using either bitcoin or cash, with Strike handling the conversion and ACH leg [PUBLIC][Strike Blog]. Cost Basis, currently rolling out to US customers, tracks bitcoin lots, transfers out, and dispositions with realized and unrealized gain and loss reporting, addressing one of the more painful operational frictions for active Bitcoin users [PUBLIC][Strike Blog].
On pricing, Strike has explicitly retired its spread on US buy and sell flows in favor of a tiered fee schedule that lowers the marginal fee as a customer transacts more, a model the company positions as friendlier to high-volume Bitcoiners [PUBLIC][Strike Blog]. Geographically, the company has expanded its buy-bitcoin functionality globally in stages, beginning with El Salvador and extending into 65 countries by mid-2023 [PUBLIC][Fortune, May 2023], with a dedicated European product launch in April 2024 [PUBLIC][BusinessWire, April 2024].
On the technology side, the differentiating choices are the Lightning-native architecture and Strike's decision to own its banking and licensing stack directly rather than rent it [PUBLIC][Strike Blog]. The infrastructure migration suggests internal investment in payment processing, KYC/AML tooling, and treasury operations, inferred from the scope of work the company describes, although Strike has not publicly itemized its full technology stack. The product is not custodial in the sense of holding altcoin balances: Strike is deliberately Bitcoin-only, which simplifies the compliance and treasury surface relative to multi-asset exchanges.
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Strike product blog posts and BusinessWire launch coverage.
Market Research and Opportunity
PUBLIC
The market that matters for Strike is the intersection of Bitcoin on-ramps and cross-border consumer payments. Lightning-based settlement is now being treated as production infrastructure rather than an experiment. Strike sits at the seam between two large, separately measured pools: global crypto exchange volume and global remittance flows. The company has reported processing approximately $6 billion in transaction volume with a roughly 600% growth figure cited in third-party coverage, although both figures should be read as company-reported and not independently audited [Neobanque].
| Cited metric | Value | Source | Confidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cumulative transaction volume | ~$6B | [Neobanque] | YELLOW |
| Reported growth | ~600% | [Neobanque] | YELLOW |
| Countries with buy-bitcoin availability | 65 | [Fortune, May 2023] | GREEN |
| Headcount | 51-200 | [Dealroom] | YELLOW |
Analyst takeaway: the publicly available numbers describe a meaningful but mid-scale operation, large enough to matter inside the Bitcoin-native segment but well below the volume profile of Cash App's bitcoin business. The country-count and headcount figures are more reliably sourced than the volume and growth claims.
Demand drivers are identifiable even without a tidy TAM figure. Consumer adoption of Bitcoin in higher-inflation economies, regulated US institutional acceptance via spot Bitcoin ETFs, and the maturation of Lightning as a settlement rail collectively widen the addressable user base for a Bitcoin-only consumer app. Strike's European launch in April 2024 [BusinessWire, April 2024] places it inside the EU's MiCA regulatory perimeter, which is now the most clearly defined crypto regime among major economies and which favors operators with direct licensing rather than reseller arrangements.
Adjacent and substitute markets matter as much as the core. Cash App, PayPal, Revolut, and Robinhood all offer bitcoin buy/sell as a feature inside a broader financial product, which means Strike must convince users that a Bitcoin-specialist app earns a separate slot on the home screen. On the remittance side, traditional providers (Western Union, Wise, Remitly) and stablecoin-based newcomers represent the substitute set for Strike's send-money use case. Regulatory and macro forces cut both ways: clearer US and EU rules expand the legitimate operating surface for Strike, but ongoing scrutiny of money transmitters and Bitcoin-related businesses keeps compliance cost structurally high.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Country count and EU launch are well sourced; volume and growth figures are company-reported via secondary press.
Competitive Landscape
MIXED
Strike's positioning is narrower and deeper than its main competitors: a Bitcoin-only, Lightning-native consumer app rather than a multi-asset wallet or a generalist neobank that happens to support bitcoin.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding | Notable Differentiator | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Strike | Bitcoin-only consumer app on Lightning, US and EU coverage | Series B, ~$80M disclosed | Owned banking infrastructure plus Lightning-native send/receive | [PUBLIC][BusinessWire, Sep 27, 2022][Strike Blog] |
| Cash App (Block) | Consumer financial app with bitcoin buy/sell and Lightning send | Public (NYSE: SQ) | Massive existing US user base and distribution | [PUBLIC][Reddit] |
| River | US Bitcoin-only brokerage and custody | Private, Series B-backed | Yield product and institutional-grade custody focus | [PUBLIC][Reddit] |
| Swan Bitcoin | US Bitcoin-only DCA and custody | Private | Recurring-buy and long-horizon HODLer positioning | [PUBLIC][Reddit] |
| OpenNode | Bitcoin payments processor for merchants | Private | Merchant-side Lightning acquiring | [PRIVATE][CBInsights] |
The competitive map breaks into three layers. The incumbent layer is Cash App, which is the practical benchmark for any Bitcoin-on-ramp serving US consumers because it combines a very large installed user base with native Lightning send capability. The challenger layer of Bitcoin-only specialists, where Strike sits alongside River and Swan Bitcoin, competes on conviction and feature depth: each pitches a more serious Bitcoin experience than a generalist app can provide, but each must justify a separate install. The adjacent substitute layer includes merchant-side processors such as OpenNode, multi-asset exchanges, and stablecoin remittance startups, which compete for parts of Strike's use case rather than the whole.
Where Strike has a defensible edge today is the combination of a Lightning-first product surface, the El Salvador-rooted brand association with global Bitcoin payments, and the move to owned banking and licensing infrastructure [Strike Blog]. The infrastructure ownership is the most durable element because it raises switching cost for the company itself: future feature work and geographic expansion no longer require re-papering with a banking partner. The brand edge, by contrast, is more perishable; founder-driven crypto brands depreciate when the founder's public attention shifts.
Where Strike is most exposed is consumer distribution. Cash App's installed base means it can match any Lightning-based send feature without paying customer-acquisition cost, and on the savings-and-DCA flank, Swan and River are explicitly built around the recurring-buy customer that Strike also wants. Strike does not own a payroll, brokerage, or social channel that would give it organic top-of-funnel inside the US. In Europe, the open question is whether MiCA licensing alone is enough to compete against well-capitalized local incumbents.
The most plausible 18-month scenario: winner if Strike converts EU launch traction into a defensible second home market and ships a credible merchant-acceptance product on top of its owned infrastructure; loser if Cash App expands native Lightning send into more geographies before Strike establishes brand outside the Bitcoin-native audience.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitor identities confirmed in community sources and CBInsights; relative positioning is analyst interpretation.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Strike executes, the prize is to become the default consumer interface for Bitcoin-denominated money movement outside the walled gardens of large neobanks.
The headline opportunity. The single largest outcome Strike could plausibly become is the category-defining Bitcoin-only consumer financial app for the Western and Latin American markets, in roughly the way that specialist brokerages came to own equities-native users even after generalist banks added trading. The cited evidence makes that outcome reachable rather than purely aspirational: Strike already operates in 65 countries [Fortune, May 2023], has launched a dedicated EU app under the post-MiCA regulatory regime [BusinessWire, April 2024], and has migrated to owned banking infrastructure that removes a structural ceiling on geographic and product expansion [Strike Blog]. The scarce ingredients (Lightning expertise, regulatory perimeter, founder-led brand inside the Bitcoin community) are difficult for a generalist to replicate quickly.
Growth scenarios.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it is plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Become the EU's default Bitcoin consumer app | Strike captures the post-MiCA window before local incumbents mature their Bitcoin offerings | Sustained EU app rollout following April 2024 launch | EU launch is live and the regulatory regime favors licensed operators [BusinessWire, April 2024] |
| Win the cross-border remittance corridor | Strike's Lightning rails undercut traditional remittance fees on US-to-LatAm and EU-to-LatAm corridors | Continued El Salvador presence plus 65-country footprint | Country footprint already covers key remittance endpoints [Fortune, May 2023] |
| Become the merchant Lightning standard | Strike's owned infrastructure is opened to merchant acquirers and platforms | Expansion of payments product on top of self-operated stack | Infrastructure migration is complete, removing a key dependency [Strike Blog] |
What compounding looks like. The flywheel that turns one win into the next has two components. The first is regulatory and infrastructure compounding: each additional country license and each additional banking relationship makes the next launch cheaper and faster, because the compliance, treasury, and engineering work is reusable. Strike's stated decision to operate its own infrastructure is the precondition for this compounding [Strike Blog]. The second is two-sided network effect on Lightning: as more consumers hold Strike balances and more merchants accept Lightning payments through Strike's rails, the cost and friction of using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, rather than a savings instrument, declines, which in turn justifies more consumer accounts. Cash App has demonstrated the consumer side of this loop at scale; Strike's bet is that a Bitcoin-only specialist can capture the deeper end of the same loop.
The size of the win. Comparable framing matters here. Block, Cash App's parent, derived a substantial portion of its gross profit from bitcoin-related activity through 2023, and standalone Bitcoin-financial businesses have attracted nine and ten-figure private valuations. Dealroom's estimated enterprise value range for Strike of $320 to $480 million [Dealroom] reflects the post-2022 round. A successful execution of the EU plus remittance scenarios would re-rate the business closer to the upper end of specialist crypto-fintech comparables, which on public-market and recent-private multiples have traded in the low single-digit billions of dollars (scenario, not a forecast). The downside framing belongs in the private half of this report; the point here is that the headline number for Strike, in a scenario where it lands the EU and the merchant rails, is plausibly an order of magnitude above its current disclosed valuation range rather than a marginal step up.
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Scenarios anchored in confirmed launches and footprint; valuation framing is explicitly scenario-based.
Sources
PUBLIC
[Strike.me] Strike | Buy, sell and send bitcoin | https://strike.me/
[Strike.me] What is Strike? | https://strike.me/en/learn/what-is-strike/
[Strike Blog] Bitcoin Lightning Network leader Strike raises $80 million funding round | https://strike.me/en/blog/bitcoin-lightning-network-leader-strike-raises-80-million-funding-round-to-revolu/
[Strike Blog] Strike infrastructure update | https://strike.me/en/blog/strike-infrastructure-update-we-now-serve-customers-on-our-own-infrastructure/
[Strike Blog] Announcing Strike Bill Pay | https://strike.me/en/blog/announcing-strike-bill-pay/
[Strike Blog] Announcing buy bitcoin globally | https://strike.me/en/blog/announcing-buy-bitcoin-globally/
[Strike Blog] From Spreads To Fees: Simple, transparent, and cheap pricing | https://strike.me/blog/from-spreads-to-fees-simple-transparent-and-cheap-pricing-for-bitcoiners/
[Strike Blog] Announcing Cost Basis | https://strike.me/en/blog/announcing-cost-basis/
[Strike Blog] Strike: 2023 Recap and 2024 Lookahead | https://strike.me/blog/strike-2023-recap-2024-lookahead/
[BusinessWire, April 2024] Strike Launches Bitcoin App in Europe | https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240424407807/en/Strike-Launches-Bitcoin-App-in-Europe
[BusinessWire, Sep 27, 2022] Strike $80 million funding round announcement | https://www.businesswire.com/
[CoinDesk, Sep 2022] Strike Raises $80M Series B Led by Ten31 | https://www.coindesk.com/
[Dealroom] Strike company information, funding and investors | https://app.dealroom.co/companies/strike_1_3
[PitchBook] Zap Solutions 2026 Company Profile | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/437169-79
[Wellfound] Strike.me Careers | https://wellfound.com/company/strike-me-1
[LinkedIn] Strike company page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinstrike
[Crunchbase] Strike updates and signals | https://crunchbase.com/organization/strike-llc-2/signals_and_news
[Bitstamp Learn Center] Who is Jack Mallers? | https://www.bitstamp.net/learn/people-profiles/jack-mallers/
[Bitcoin Magazine] Strike tag archive | https://bitcoinmagazine.com/tags/strike
Articles about Strike
- Strike Is Wiring Bitcoin Bill Pay Into 65 Countries — Jack Mallers' Chicago fintech raised $80M from Ten31 and now runs its own banking rails. Cash App is the wall it has to climb.