Another interesting point with Strike. They still have some time left for this goal, but it is getting down to the wire and I have not seen it happen yet. Earlier they announced a deal with MCR and some other company. The end goal being integration in MCR's terminal software for self checkout and cash register systems.
I have not seen anything there, and Strike did say it would be around Q4 of this year.
Also the way Strike works in countries like Argentina is if you send money (BTC or Fiat) to an account there, it will be converted into stablecoin in order to provide easy access to dollars, so there is no one transacting in BTC, but the network is being used to transmit value in a way that would otherwise be not possible. In this respect, Strike's goal would be to monopolize the market, which aligns with what a for-profit company would do, though I do think this introduces the potential for conflicts of interest when it comes to BTC.
The mechanics work same way with an American account except instead of a stablecoin Strike will just show a dollar balance.
People in those countries can still buy BTC through Strike and self custody, but I don't think anyone really transacts in BTC directly outside of pocket areas where communities have been built up around Bitcoin like in some places of El Salvador.
Jack's message that he can out compete Visa is an optimistic view, though I am not sure how accurate it is. As soon as competing companies realize it, there is nothing stopping them from doing the same. Visa has a thousand times more resources than Strike will ever see and if all Strike is doing is bridging the gap into a well optimized network for transactions, other companies can do that too. All you need is a financial service that can both bank and run a node, like River Financial: https://1ml.com/channel/830588675907911680 .
This indicates to me the only reason for this type of talk is because he understands that he is on a time crunch, and convincing people otherwise will buy him a little more time before Visa and others decide to jump in on this. All of them will. Who can lock down the exclusivity contracts first?
As you said, replace WU with Strike and what is fundamentally the difference? WU can go down the same path Strike has gone down. In any case I welcome competition over monopoly.
Right now. But what happens when WU decides to do what Strike is doing. They can run this in parallel to their current infrastructure. Jack has stated very clearly that WU would do things cheaper if they could, but they cant due to the physical legacy infrastructure needed to maintain their business.
That is why it is a race. There is no reason at all WU cannot get in on this and eventually fully migrate their infrastructure. Anyone that thinks its not possible has never seen a mega corp rip its infra apart and practically start over - I have.
So yeah, it's cheaper for now, but the only way Strike can have a monopoly at this is to have clear and strong first mover advantage. They have it now, but it is not clear or strong. Even if so, it is unclear why Strike having a monopoly is a good thing, and also unclear what the advantage is if other companies will be able to do the same thing.
Bitcoiners are only positive that Strike will be successful because Jack says its difficult for other companies to compete with this, but I would be interested to find out how accurate that really is. I don't really see it being accurate from a perspective of resources alone. All these companies could operate at a loss for decades just to extinguish Strike out of the market and corner all this stuff for themselves.
Yeah no problem! It's weird because it Stackernews notified me of this reply instead of a different one. Wish there was a way to delete comments so I just edited it out to say deleted instead.
Except that any Bitcoin/lightning entity can do what Strike is doing and prevent market concentration and absurd WU fees. This helps people in poverty. Fiat money will die in its own time. No single human or company can prop it up forever.
It might be that Mallers' end game is exactly this, that one day people decide to skip the conversion into fiat. Putting the Lightning infra in place now to improve fiat remittances, might allow us to just ditch the fiat part at some point. A bit like a trojan horse.
WE ARE HERE TO FUCK THE BANKS AND USE BITCOIN ONLY.