Jack Mallers is the founder and CEO of Strike – a no-fee app where users can make and receive cryptocurrency payments quickly.
Mallers was also influential in making Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador, but what is the story behind the entrepreneur and what is his net worth?
Who is Jack Mallers?
Jack Mallers was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 9, 1994 and went to St John’s University in New York before dropping out after a year to learn to code.
He went on to build apps that helped wheelchair users find accessible transportation methods and helped personal trainers manage their fitness clients.
In 2017, at the age of just 26, Mallers founded the payment app Zap.
Mallers saw how fast and easy transactions with the Lightning Network along with the security of the Bitcoin Network could change the way we view payments.
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The Lightning Network is built on top of the pre-existing Bitcoin blockchain, and it improves processing speed and scalability.
It enables quick, no-fee transactions as it processes payments off-chain.
At first, Zap targeted cannabis dispensaries. Although marijuana has been legalized across vast parts of the US, it’s still illegal for recreational use which makes it difficult for these businesses to obtain basic banking services, forcing them to operate using cash-only.
Zap supported two dispensaries in Colorado when it first launched in 2018 but struggled to expand.
In September 2019, Zap pivoted and launched Olympus.
With Olympus, users could purchase Bitcoin with their bank account, debit card or other payment methods, within seconds.
Users were then able to use their Bitcoin to make transactions on the Lightning Network and deposit funds into their wallets after each transaction.
In January 2020, Mallers rebranded Olympus as Strike, and users were able to make cryptocurrency transactions using their debit cards or a bank account (fiat currency), without the need for a wallet.
Mallers said: “Users wouldn’t have to deal with volatility, they wouldn’t have to deal with taxes, they wouldn’t need to set up a wallet to interact with the protocols, and they wouldn’t even need to own Bitcoin to scan a Lightning QR code.”
Strike also has a “pay me in Bitcoin” feature, which allows users to deposit their salaries into their Strike account.
The app allows users to choose what percentage of their salary want to convert to Bitcoin.
Mallers created Strike to remove the middleman from traditional transactions, helping put more money back into normal people’s hands.
He said: “It’s the only monetary network that works in a third-world country as it does in a city like Chicago or New York.”
He added: “Enabling a cheaper, faster and open payment network with some of the biggest financial institutions in the world isn’t fast and easy, but it’s happening.
“Every company that’s in the business of moving money is interested in superior payments, and we’re in talks with many of them.
“It doesn’t get any bigger and more exciting than innovating in payments for the betterment of the world.”
El Salvador’s move towards adopting Bitcoin as a legal tender came after the success of the Strike app in the country.
Mallers spent three months in El Salvador in 2020 learning how Strike could help solve the country’s remittance problems.
He saw El Salvador as a great use case for expanding Bitcoin as 70 per cent of the population doesn’t have a bank account and as remittances make up 25 per cent of the country’s GDP.
This means a lot of Salvadorans use Western Union and pay hefty fees in order to send and receive their money in dollars.
After El Salvador adopted Bitcoin, Mallers said they experienced overnight success, going from 10 downloads a day to around 20,000.
In 2021, Mallers was featured on Forbes’ 30 under 30 list of young entrepreneurs impacting the financial sector.
In September 2021, Twitter announced that it would use the Strike API to allow its users to tip with Bitcoin.
What is Jack Mallers’ net worth?
Jack Mallers has raised over $100 million in funding for Strike and has an estimated net worth of around $20 million based on his shares in the company.