A Bitcoin Lightning startup named Strike declared last month that it would be collaborating with Visa, the world payment giant. Another startup LastBit recently launched its application in beta and claimed to be following the similar Visa Fast Track program.
This collaboration would enable users to pay for items priced in US dollars but using BTC.
LastBit aims to enable the users to employ Lightning network for making payments about anything and everything. The user opens up LastBit application and loads BTC into it, and finally gets rapid access to a digital debit card for sending bitcoin payments. So, when the person sends a bitcoin as payment, the vendor on the other side, receive the fiat currency, i.e. dollars or euros. Therefore, Bitcoin’s Lightning Network makes the bitcoin payments faster and cheaper. Though a few stores accept Lightning payments, they are not completely perceived as regular BTC transactions.
LastBit aims to enable the BTC users to walk into any store and pay using Bitcoin, irrespective of whether the merchant receives bitcoin or not.
Balasubramanian, the founder of LastBit claims that they have planned a technique for interoperability between the fiat currency and bitcoin on top of the Lightning network that pampers the needs of both experienced and new users in the similar fashion.
Expansion in the US and Europe
LastBit is working hard to tap the possibility of processing bitcoin payments to vendors in US and Europe.
The startup made its way to the University of California, Berkeley’s accelerator program being financed by Charlie Lee, the creator of Litecoin, Binance crypto exchange and MongoDB database creator.
LastBit being in operation with Visa for payments in the US. It has now also got consent from MasterCard to get started in the European Union. With the support of right investors and a robust product, they are moving ahead to launch the layer of interoperable payments in the EU to convince that this would work and a small firm like their’s could transform the market with such a complicated product.
