[2018-12-19] Bitcoin Payment Processor OpenNode Gets $1.25M From Investors

[squatter]

It's nice to see some new competition emerging to contend with Bitpay. They seem to have solid heads on their shoulders. Segwit-supporting, Lightning-integrated, and they plan to stay Bitcoin-only. The investor is Tim Draper, who I also think is pretty visionary.

Some excerpts from the article:

Bitcoin Payment Processor OpenNode Gets $1.25M From Investors

Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode has announced a seed investment round of $1.25 million with venture capitalist Tim Draper and early-stage investment firm Draper Associates.

"We were very selective with whom we chose to bring on as our investor. We are very excited to have Draper Associates on board because they share in our long-term vision of hyperbitcoinization. We plan on staying as a bitcoin-only payments platform, and Tim gets that."

For OpenNode, the growth has been steady and healthy despite the downturn in the market. According to Almeida, the continuous development of infrastructure from protocol developers would see the company grow even further.

"By 2019, we plan to be the leading bitcoin payments platform. Also, more importantly, we aim to push microtransactions onto gaming/streaming/content platform and create payment models never before possible."

OpenNode was founded in April 2018 as a payment processor that facilitates bitcoin payments for individuals and businesses. The processor supports bitcoin protocol implementations like SegWit and the Lightning Network, offering instant settlement of transactions with low fees.

Perhaps, one of the standout features of OpenNode is its integration with the Lightning Network, which has seen much integration from blockchain startups, since Lightning Labs launched the first beta release in March 2018.

Full article here.

Draper said on Twitter, "Finally!! Now you will be able to use bitcoin to buy Starbucks, Amazon.com, Teslas, houses, etc. Fast transactions!" Interesting...

[buwaytress]

There's always been competition to Bitpay, we've got better working ones that work very similarly without the ridiculous restrictions it now has (Mistertango I can think of is one right now). We've got BTCPay, that's open source and well supported. But yeah of course, no harm to have even more join the fray and all the better if it's open source (despite the name OpenNode doesn't seem to be though... but with plus Lightning support, now that's something we'll be keeping an eye out for.

$1 mill. That's really not a bad amount of funding considering the market.

[1Referee]

but with plus Lightning support, now that's something we'll be keeping an eye out for.

Lightning is going to be a massive selling feature which payment processors will be differentiating themselves with in the forthcoming months/years. If you aren't accepting Lightning payments, you're old news and very likely going to lose customers because people want to use that's what the cheapest and coolest piece of tech.

It's only a matter of time before large exchanges starts entering the Lightning field. Coinbase allows merchants to accept Bitcoin too, so that would make a great combination to start with.

Here is a video on youtube where someone in Switzerland bought a sandwich and coffee with Lightning, and the process was as expected, instant and very convenient. Real world use that is.

[BitHodler]

$1 mill. That's really not a bad amount of funding considering the market.

It's perfectly sufficient. People have been distracted by the insane amounts of money startups managed to raise last year. In most cases startups got at least 75% more in funding than they actually needed.

We all know what happens when the price dumps and these startups start to get worried--they'll be the first to unload a part of their excess in funds. They don't care about anything since it's like free money for them.

Here is a video on youtube where someone in Switzerland bought a sandwich and coffee with Lightning, and the process was as expected, instant and very convenient. Real world use that is.

That's what I like to see. Didn't know there already were brick and mortar stores accepting LN payments. This shows that we're much further in development than most people think.

If we talk about LN, most people play it down as if it's something for next year or even after 2020, but it's good to see that it's active and actually being used in commerce as we speak. This signals confidence in the protocol.

[figmentofmyass]

There's always been competition to Bitpay, we've got better working ones that work very similarly without the ridiculous restrictions it now has (Mistertango I can think of is one right now). We've got BTCPay, that's open source and well supported.

there hasn't been much visible competition, especially from well-funded companies. it's quite rare that i come across merchants using anyone but bitpay. once in a blue moon i see coinpayments or coingate, and i've never heard of mistertango before.

i'd like to see a well-funded company with a strong marketing budget take a bite out of bitpay's market share. their fee policies and trolling about RBF really get on my nerves.

[hatshepsut93]

I don't want anymore payment processors, I want merchants to stop being chickens and start accepting Bitcoin directly. Bitcoin was designed to cut the middlemen, and yet so many businesses only want to interact with Bitcoin through the middlemen. Don't they understand how bad those middlemen can be for users, for Bitcoin network and for their business?

[squatter]

I don't want anymore payment processors, I want merchants to stop being chickens and start accepting Bitcoin directly. Bitcoin was designed to cut the middlemen, and yet so many businesses only want to interact with Bitcoin through the middlemen. Don't they understand how bad those middlemen can be for users, for Bitcoin network and for their business?

Could you blame merchants for not wanting to engage in currency speculation? They're not day traders -- volatility doesn't help their business and may represent a far bigger risk than counterparty risk.

I think people expect too much when it comes to merchant adoption. The way I see it, merchants who simply want to accept Bitcoin and therefore integrate it are irrelevant. What matters is whether merchants are being forced by the market to accept Bitcoin due to consumer demand. That demand doesn't currently exist, so merchants don't care.