Strike CEO Jack Mallers has taken to Twitter to announce that Strike is now an integrated partner with payments giant Fiserv, parent company of Clover. Subsequently, Strike has launched a pilot integration with Clover allowing merchants to accept bitcoin over the Lightning Network.
According to his announcement, the integration is not limited to Strike. Instead, merchants will be able to accept Lightning payments from any source — “From Cash App to a node over Tor. If it can make a Lightning payment, you can use it,” Mallers stated on Twitter.
Mallers clarified that this rollout is part of a 90-day trial period, which will involve measuring the speed and cost of facilitating transactions using the new integration. In addition to that, the amount of business that integrating Lightning brings to merchants will be closely monitored.
After the pilot, Strike aims to enter the Clover app store, and afterwards, direct integration into Clover. This would enable Lightning by default for all Clover merchants, putting it right next to card networks like Visa and MasterCard.
“Ultimately, these payment giants want to see Lightning in action,” Mallers said on Twitter. “They want to feel it, touch it, and see people use it. An open, instant, cheap, inclusive, and innovative payment network seems too good to be true. Time to show Lightning is the world’s superior payments rail.”
The trial period is now active and Clover merchants can reach out to Strike in order to enable cheaper, faster payments using the Bitcoin Lightning Network.