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Bitcoin Company OpenNode Raises $20M At $220M Valuation
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Tag: Opennode
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Real Bedford Football Club To Accept Bitcoin Through OpenNode
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Australian Baseball Club Embarks On A Bitcoin Standard, Integrates Lightning
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Human Trafficking Institute To Accept Bitcoin Donations
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Latin American Real Estate Market Leader Accepting Bitcoin As Payment
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Leading Bitcoin Rewards App Fold To Go Full Lightning In 2022
Bitcoin rewards company, Fold, is going full on Lightning by the end of 2022 and has partnered with OpenNode to start the process soon.
In a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine, bitcoin rewards app giant Fold confirmed that they have committed to integrating Lightning Network support by the end of 2022.
This is an effort to support the growth of the Lightning Network, a second-layer scaling solution, which is proving to be vital in bitcoin’s journey to becoming a medium of exchange (MoE). Lightning allows for low fee off-chain transactions and near instant micropayment processing, in addition to greater privacy.
With Fold integrating the Lightning Network, this will bring many new users into the mix. Fold currently has over 500,000 mobile app users with many for whom this will be their first experience using Lightning, after already being exposed to the benefits of bitcoin rewards.
“We are continuing our tradition of moving the space towards Lightning as we did before in the early days with Lightning Pizza. By incentivizing users to use Lightning and opt to receive their rewards in a Lightning wallet, we are bootstrapping LN adoption,” said Fold CEO Will Reeves.
To help make this possible, Fold struck a partnership with BTC payment processor, OpenNode, to help jumpstart this transition over to Lightning. This partnership will allow Fold users to withdraw their bitcoin rewards to their own Lightning wallet, available within the “coming weeks.” The release stated that on-chain transactions will only remain available for a limited time.
“We’re really excited to partner with Fold to drive Bitcoin adoption and Lightning Network usage through better payments experiences. OpenNode will power bitcoin payouts for Fold, enabling Fold users to withdraw the bitcoin they earn instantly, and at the lowest cost possible. We look forward to working with Fold to make many more improvements to the way people earn, transfer, and pay with bitcoin,” said OpenNode co-founder and CTO João Almeida.
Publishing platform Substack now accepts Bitcoin payments
An integration with payment processor OpenNode will allow content platform Substack to accept Bitcoin payments on-chain and using the Lightning Network.
In a Monday announcement, OpenNode said it had partnered with Substack “to make it easy for writers and publications to get paid in Bitcoin.” According to OpenNode and Substack, the integration will only be available to “a select group of crypto-focused publications” on the platform.
The publishing platform, which allows writers to send their work directly to readers, has more than 500,000 paid subscribers, with the most popular writers reportedly earning more than six figures annually. The select Substack readers will be able to pay for their subscriptions in Bitcoin (BTC), with certain publications allowed to keep their earnings in crypto as well.
Substack product designer Nick Inzucch hinted that the platform could later expand its crypto payment offering to other writers in an effort to give them “more flexibility and freedom.” A number of prominent figures in the crypto space currently publish using Substack, including analyst Willy Woo and Kraken growth lead Dan Held.
Related: Second largest US mortgage lender will accept crypto payments this year
Founded in 2017, Substack is backed by venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, Fifty Years, and others. After a March funding round led by Andreesen Horowitz, the platform reportedly has a valuation of roughly $650 million.
OpenNode, BigCommerce Partner To Bring Bitcoin Payments To 60,000 Merchants
Payment processor OpenNode and ecommerce platform BigCommerce have partnered to bring bitcoin payments to more than 60,000 global merchants.
Bitcoin payment infrastructure provider OpenNode has announced that its technology will be leveraged by ecommerce company BigCommerce, bringing bitcoin payment options to more than 60,000 merchants around the world.
“Our partnership with BigCommerce is another important step towards meeting surging merchant demand for bitcoin payment acceptance,” said Julie Landrum, OpenNode’s head of growth, in an email to Bitcoin Magazine. “Response from BigCommerce merchants has been incredibly positive, and follows huge success powering payments for the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami. Payments are changing, and OpenNode is excited to drive access and scale with forward-thinking payments and platform providers like BigCommerce.”
BigCommerce merchants will have the option to settle sales in their preferred currency, local fiat or bitcoin, and OpenNode bitcoin acceptance is compatible with any Bitcoin wallet. Through the partnership, they will have the ability to offer on-chain and Lightning Network payments.
With bitcoin-enabled payments, these merchants can appeal to the growing number of people around the world who seek to transact in BTC.
“Consumers today want the option to check out on a website through whatever means make them most comfortable, be it a traditional credit card or an emergent technology like bitcoin, and our goal as an open software-as-a-service platform is to work with industry-leading partners that can help make that checkout variety possible,” said Mark Rosales, vice president of business development, payments, banking and fintech for BigCommerce, per a release shared with Bitcoin Magazine. “We’re excited to work with [OpenNode] to offer bitcoin as a payment option for BigCommerce merchants.”