Strike by Zap Review: The Best Payment Processor in the World?

Strike Overview

Strike is best described as Bitcoin’s version of commonly-used payment apps like Cash App and Venmo.

The basic idea is that users are able to instantly send payments to anyone in the world at the click of a button via the power of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. Anyone can connect their bank account to Strike, which can then be used to send payments to other Strike users or any Bitcoin address or Lightning Network invoice.

Eventually, other bank-esque features will be added to Strike, which will give it all of the basic functionality found in traditional bank accounts such as a debit card and an account number for receiving ACH transfers. There are a variety of important use cases that are enabled via Strike’s merging of the traditional financial system and Bitcoin’s Lightning Network. For example, NFL Pro Bowl Tackle Russell Okung was able to convert half of his NFL salary to bitcoin through a partnership with Strike.

Is Strike Safe?

Although Strike has built much of its infrastructure on top of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, the reality is some serious tradeoffs have been made in favor of creating a seamless user experience. For example, the Bitcoin-based payments made via Strike are made by the company behind the app rather than the users themselves.

In other words, Strike is running their own Lightning Network nodes for processing payments on behalf of their users. Additionally, the ability to plug into the traditional financial system via linking a bank account or debit card means that a bit of Know Your Customer (KYC) verification is necessary to use the app.

While using Strike isn’t as trust-less as using Bitcoin itself, the tradeoffs made here will be more than worth it for users who aren’t very technical and could use a bit of extra help when interacting with the Bitcoin network. Strike has implemented all of the same sort of security standards that are found at the most trusted bitcoin exchanges in the world. For example, users can enable two-factor authentication in order to add an extra layer of protection to their Strike accounts.

How Much is Strike?

The main goal of Strike is to build an instant and free payment service that works in every country around the world. Indeed, there are no fees associated with using the Strike app, even in situations where the recipient of a payment prefers a different currency than what the sender originally sent. The only fees Strike users need to worry about are the network fees associated with operating on the Bitcoin network when a payment is being sent outside of Strike to pay a Bitcoin invoice.

So, how are these fee-free payments possible? This is where Strike’s use of the Lightning Network comes into play. Instead of using the traditional, costly rails of the legacy banking system, Strike powers its payments system with Bitcoin’s own layer-two protocol for cheap, instant payments.

Fees for payments made via Bitcoin’s Lightning Network tend to be less than a penny, which has massive implications when it comes to sending payments across the world at a low cost. For payments that are made between users who are using different local currencies, bitcoin is used as the settlement currency to enable the international money transfer for free.

What are the Best Features of Strike?

The key selling point of Strike is that it makes it easy for users to send money anywhere in the world through the power of the Bitcoin network in an extremely user-friendly interface. Users are able to scan QR codes related to Bitcoin addresses or Lightning Network invoices, and the funds to make those payments will be pulled directly from those users’ bank accounts.

The recipient of a Strike payment does not need to be using the same fiat currency as the sender, and they don’t even need to have access to a bank account if they’d like to receive payments over the Bitcoin network.

Strike has also become an alternative way for users to increase their bitcoin holdings. This is sort of a side effect of being able to make Bitcoin payments from a bank account. Users are able to make a payment from their Strike wallet to their own, non-custodial Bitcoin wallet in order to purchase bitcoin and send them to their own personal crypto wallet.

Additionally, Strike plans to add more bank-esque functionality to their users’ accounts, which will allow them to receive direct deposits into their Strike app and decide to have a specific percentage of those direct deposits converted to bitcoin.

One final perk with Strike worth mentioning is that, while there is indeed a KYC process that must be completed to use the app, the KYC verification requirements for Strike are quite low. All the user needs to provide is a name and phone number to get started with Strike.

Potential Dealbreakers

Strike is an extremely powerful tool for those who don’t understand the complexities of Bitcoin and other blockchain-based networks, but some of the crypto purists will find a variety of reasons to complain. Obviously, the fact that users must go through a bit of KYC verification in order to use the Strike app will be a turn off to cypherpunks who don’t want to tie their real identities to their online financial activities. Additionally, the Bitcoin payments made via Strike are made on users’ behalf rather than by each individual user themselves.

Another potential dealbreaker with Strike is that the app is still in pretty early stages of development. It is not widely available around the entire globe, and it’s still being rolled out in various jurisdictions through a slow, gradual process. That said, new features and countries of operation are being added to Strike on a regular basis.

One final dealbreaker potential Strike users may see with the app is that it only works with Bitcoin and it doesn’t have support for sending payments to other cryptocurrency networks. Of course, for the purposes of this app, support for additional crypto assets does not really help with the underlying intended use case.