Lightning Network payments platform Strike, which recently made headlines as the primary partner in El Salvador’s decision to declare bitcoin as legal tender, has announced it is adding a bitcoin buying tab to its app with a goal of minimizing the fees typically collected on these buys.
“I am unbelievably excited to announce the Bitcoin tab and the ability to buy bitcoin on Strike,” company founder Jack Mallers wrote in an announcement post shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “Starting today, Strike will set out to be the cheapest and easiest place on the planet to acquire bitcoin.”
In the post and in a conversation with Bitcoin Magazine ahead of the announcement, Mallers emphasized the tab as something he wanted to offer with as little markup as possible, citing Coinbase’s fees of up to 4% on such investments as contrary to the Bitcoin ethos.
“It’s going to be as cheap and accessible as we can possibly make it,” Mallers said in the call. “You cannot build a business on charging people to buy open-source money… I’m going to offer buying bitcoin for free, without any shitcoins.”
Initially, Strike will charge no fees for buying bitcoin but will pass on the market-spread execution cost charged by its partners. The announcement post indicated that those costs are less than 0.3% now and that Mallers expects them to drop below 0.1% “over the coming months” as volume grows and Strike’s partners charge it less.
During the call, Mallers explained that the service will have a 10 BTC cap per single order, and that the tab will initially be released as a beta with a waitlist. Users can hold their bitcoin in the app or withdraw to third-party wallets for which they control the private keys.
The announcement also teased a potential range of additional functionalities coming to the Strike app, potentially things like automatic dollar-cost averaging (DCA) services, direct deposit splits into bitcoin and more.
“Today, the Bitcoin tab allows you to buy bitcoin. However, the Bitcoin tab lays the foundation for much more,” per the announcement post. “Soon, users will be able to buy bitcoin, get paid in bitcoin, get rewards in bitcoin, round up savings in bitcoin and much more.”