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Bitcoin-based payments network and financial application strike has advertised that it is expanding his bitcoin lightning network-powered money transfer services to the philippines.
The announcement sees the strike enter one of the largest $35 million remittance markets in the world.
Expanding Into The Philippines
Digital payments firm Strike has announced that it is expanding its international money transfer services to the country of the Philippines. According to a press release, the globally requested remittance service is expected to be available in the Philippines on Tuesday. The service is powered by the Bitcoin Lightning network and allows faster and cheaper international payments compared to the methods available in the traditional financial system. Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced on Twitter,
“Strike users can now send US Dollars direct to banks and mobile money accounts in the Philippines!”
Strike CEO Jack Mallers announced on Twitter, "Strike users can now send US dollars directly to Philippine banks and mobile money accounts!" Mallers stated,
“The Philippines is one of the biggest remitting markets in the world, especially from the United States. In terms of the technology we're building, it's one of the easiest fruits to pick—international payments are a tremendous pain and have always been. In terms of the technology we're building, it's one of the easiest fruits to harvest—international payments are a tremendous pain and have always been.
There has been progressive innovation on the part of both SWIFT and Western Union.
This is still incredibly challenging."
According to Statista data, in 2021 alone, US-based Filipinos sent approximately $12.7 billion in cash to their country of origin. Instant payments traditional cross-border cash transfer services are cumbersome, as banks take several days to transfer funds from an account to the receiving account. Thanks to the lightning net, strike is able to use instantaneous and inexpensive micropayments, which makes it possible to facilitate billions of transactions per second via the platform. Maller stated,
“None of our users have to touch Bitcoin. The Strike application also allows users to transfer US dollars into local currencies, like the Filipino peso in the case of the Philippines, at extremely low costs.
Maller said,"None of our users must hit Bitcoin. The aspiration of the business is to hide bitcoin under the hood” so users could benefit from its payment network.”the strike app converts dollars into btc and sends a lightning payment to the partner in the recipient country.In the Philippines, strike has entered into a partnership with Bitcoin pocket payments business. Ph. it is then converted into the local currency and sent to the bank account of the consignee.
According to mallers, the whole process is protected from users so that they are spared the complexity of Bitcoin payments and can avoid any potential fiscal impact. There are all kinds of tax implications. If I wanted to put money here in the Philippines, I'd have to talk to the IRS. There are all kinds of tax implications. If I wanted to pay money from here to the Philippines, I have to talk to the taxman about it. The characteristics of the bolt under the hood are used. We use Lightning's properties under the bonnet.
So our users have no idea we're even using it. All they send is dollars and pesos."
Strike has already been in the news thanks to its work with El Salvador, which adopted Bitcoin as legal tender. Following El Salvador’s lead, we may see other countries such as also adopt BTC as legal tender, where Strike could play a crucial role. If we follow the example of El Salvador, we could see other countries, for example, adopting the BTC as their legal currency, where the strike could play a crucial role.
Strike said its objective is to disrupt the traditional remittance industry, which is struggling with high fees and slow turnaround times. Strike said its objective is to disrupt the traditional remittance industry, which is struggling with high fees and slow turnaround times.
When we think across borders, we don't think very quickly, very inexpensive and very good experience. We’re using bitcoin’s lightning network under the hood to achieve some stuff that has never been possible before.”strike is also planning on expanding in other areas in latin america and africa, because of the increasing world demand. Mallers said the strike sees the request of the UK and European regions and plans to add 20 new countries to the African region in February.
In the past month, the global strike has been launched in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana. Strike also announced that it was partnering with the finserv payment service provider to expand its services. The platform also raised $80 million as part of a Series B financing initiative to develop payment solutions for markets, merchants and financial institutions. Companies such as Twitter have also enabled Bitcoin payments through the Lightning Network with Strike.
