In an energetic and sweary keynote speech at Bitcoin 2022 on Thursday, Jack Mallers told a packed crowd his Bitcoin Lightning mobile payments app Strike has partnered with Shopify and NCR.

But that’s not all. Let’s recap some of the major news so far from a big couple of days in Miami for the original and no.1 crypto asset…

 

Lightning Strikes for Shopify, NCR and Blackhawk

Covering about as many miles as Forrest Gump, the Bitcoin 2022-stage-pacing Strike CEO revealed (in true “Bitcoin, f**k yeah!” crypto bro style) a series of huge partnerships for Bitcoin’s Lightning Network.

This includes integration with the Canadian-founded e-commerce titan Shopify, as well as teaming up with the world’s largest point-of-sale supplier NCR, and payments firm Blackhawk.

Shopify has reported that more than 1.7 million businesses use its platform, including McDonald’s, Walmart and Starbucks. Meanwhile one in six point-of-sale (card terminals and ATMs) installations around the globe belong to Atalanta firm NCR.

And, although lesser-known, the Californian firm Blackhawk Network isn’t exactly a small operation, either…

There had been rumours of some sort of Apple or ApplePay announcement amid a series of Apple and Steve Jobs-related tweets posted by Mallers leading up to the event. That turned out to be something of a red herring, with the tweets likely just giving a nod to Jobs’ change-the-world, “think different” ethos.

Nevertheless, the Strike news is still big and Crypto Twitter has been going nuts for it. Here was Collective Shift CEO Ben Simpson’s take…

And a couple of others…

 

‘We believe we can change the world’

Speaking before a packed house at the Miami Beach Conference Center, Mallers outlined how he believes the Bitcoin Lightning Network (a second-layer Bitcoin blockchain protocol that offers near-instant transactions) and Strike’s new partnerships can be a game changer.

“If we can help make the Bitcoin network more accessible and usable we believe we can change the world,” said the 27-year-old from Chicago, adding that leveraging Bitcoin as a cheap payments network is critical to that outcome.

“There’s not been, since 1949, a superior payments network that allows us to innovate” for consumers, claimed Mallers. “Let’s build the superior payments network from scratch.”

The thought among the crypto Twitterati is that the Strike partnerships could bring about a huge boom in mainstream adoption for Bitcoin through the Lightning Network.

Speaking of which, the popular stonks and crypto-trading platform Robinhood announced on the same day as the Mallers speech that it, too, is now adding support for Bitcoin transactions on the Lightning Network.

But rounding out the Mallers news, the Strike CEO finished up by revealing he’s been working with the Bitcoin-championing US Republican senator Cynthia Lummis on her push for bipartisan, pro-financial-innovation legislation.

“I’ve also been working with policymakers to ensure that we have the right to build freely in this country,” said Mallers, adding: “This is about America and we need to protect our ability to innovate.”

 

More global territories swallow the orange pill

Bitcoin’s Miami event, which has reportedly attracted more than 40,000 people from all over the world, also yesterday delivered news of BTC adoption from two more nation-state territories.

They’re not quite in the same league as the Bitcoin 2021 El Salvador-embracing bombshell, delivered this time last year by the country’s backwards-cap-wearing president Nayib Bukele… but it’s still something.

Prospera, a jurisdiction on the  island off the northern coast of Honduras, and Madeira, an autonomous region in Portugal, are now the latest territories to adopt Bitcoin as de facto legal tender.

The reveals were also made on the main stage at the Miami conference, with leaders from the two regions introduced by well-known crypto identity Samson Mow.

Additionally, a senator from Mexico, Indira Kempis, joined the speakers, announcing that she intends to draft a bill for the introduction of Bitcoin as legal tender in Mexico.

You can read a little bit more about all this on Stockhead in Thursday’s Mooners and Shakers column.

 

Bitcoin 2022’s best quote bombs so far

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor: 

“I have never been more bullish on Bitcoin.”

“Biden’s Presidential EO [executive order] was a green-light from the administration on Bitcoin.”

“Bitcoin is the ethical safe haven for any politician, the technical safe haven for any company and the financial safehaven for any individual… it’s the ultimate risk-off asset.”

 

Mexico’s third-richest man, billionaire Ricardo Salinas:

“We’ve been victims of the fiat fraud for the whole century.”

“I have orange pilled a lot of our friends.”

[Regarding inlation]: “The poorest people, the people who don’t have assets, cars, stocks. They are going to be wiped out.”

“I have 60 per cent of my wealth in Bitcoin.”

 

 

Ark Invest CEO, Cathie Wood:

“Bitcoin is the first, global, private, digital rules based monetary system in the history of the world.”

“The momentum is clearly behind Bitcoin now… If inflation is an issue, Bitcoin is a hedge.”

“I think the most interesting thing that’s happened… I’m seeing the politics around Bitcoin changing radically. Because it has become THE single issue that some people are voting on, and this is bipartisan.”

 

El Salvador president, Nayib Bukele:

 

 

Canadian entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary:

Bitcoin mining is going to save the world.”

“The smartest hands are working in this industry.”

 

Strike CEO Jack Mallers:

“Let’s do this shit.”

“[Bitcoin] is not issued by a government, its not a company, BofA [Bank of America] didn’t found it and rebrand it.”

“In reality, payment networks have not innovated in over 50 years. That’s insane.”

“Bitcoin can change the world, but the world cannot change Bitcoin.” 

“If the boomers want to come on, they can come on. It’s for everybody.”