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What is Strike BLACK?

What is Strike BLACK?

The full suite of tools to build Bitcoin buying and transactions into your app

BLACK is for builders

Strike BLACK is the full suite of services for building Bitcoin features into your app.

With Strike BLACK, your app can let users:

  • Buy, sell, and hold bitcoin
  • Send and receive payments via Bitcoin or Lightning
  • Connect cash payment methods (banks & cards)
  • Make cash payouts to bank accounts
  • Onboard through KYC flows
  • Use OAuth for authentication, permissions, and access controls

Strike BLACK is Bitcoin, Lightning, APIs, Cash, and KYC – everything you need to build Bitcoin services into your app. It’s à la carte and flexible, so you can select the services that best fit your needs, and customize how to deliver them to your users, including programmatically via the Strike API or via the in-app Strike widget.

Going beyond standard Bitcoin or Lightning as a Service models (BaaS or LaaS), Strike BLACK adds cash on/off ramps, plug-and-play KYC onboarding solutions, and the ability to send and receive cash payments through the Bitcoin and Lightning Networks. It’s Bitcoin-everything as a service, tailor made for builders.

Developers and businesses looking to add Bitcoin features to their app – whether bitcoin buying, borderless transactions, or wallet services – can do so with Strike BLACK.

How do you use Strike BLACK?

Strike BLACK’s services can be deployed in different ways, depending on your use case.

All of BLACK’s services are designed to be flexible, interoperable, and scalable, so that you can build products that meet your needs and ambitions. Whether you’re a business, developer, or an end user of Strike’s services, BLACK includes steps to guide you through creating a Strike account, either directly or via the partner’s platform, so that you can use the best that bitcoin has to offer.

There are three main ways to deploy Strike BLACK services within your app:

The Strike widget

The Strike widget lets you add a “Buy bitcoin” button to your app.

It’s a web-based widget that guides your users through the process of using their cash to buy bitcoin. It includes signup, payment method linking, KYC verification, purchase execution, and delivery of bitcoin to a specified destination. It’s like having a light-version of the Strike app appended to your own app, letting users quickly and securely buy bitcoin to start holding or transacting.

How does the Strike widget work?

  1. With a few lines of code, you can add a “Buy bitcoin” button to your app
  2. A user taps that button in your app
  3. Your app opens to the Strike widget (located at https://black.strike.me), providing necessary parameters and specifying the delivery destination for the bitcoin
  4. The user is guided through the steps of connecting a debit card and flowing through KYC verification
  5. The user buys bitcoin, charging the purchase to their linked debit card
  6. The bitcoin is delivered to the specified destination

The entire process can be done in seconds to minutes. Repeat users and all existing Strike users can bypass payment method linking and KYC steps, using their established credentials and payment methods to buy bitcoin more easily.

Once the purchase is made, the bitcoin can be delivered to the user’s external wallet, a designated custodial wallet, or held on the user’s behalf in your Strike account. In conjunction with the Strike API and Strike OAuth Connect, you can then build transaction experiences, capable of making borderless payments on their behalf through the Bitcoin and Lightning Networks.

With Strike’s competitive fee structure, world class security, and established global presence, the Strike widget is the scalable solution to provide bitcoin-buying services to your customers. Contact partners@strike.me for a no obligation conversation about implementing the Strike widget in your application today, or read through the integration guide in the API documentation.

The Strike API

The Strike API lets you make borderless transactions with amounts, speeds, and costs that are impossible using legacy finance. It’s a payments API that makes cash and bitcoin transactions globally, by using Bitcoin as both an asset and a network.

How does it work?

Since bitcoin is traded 24/7/365 across all currencies, people can buy bitcoin, send bitcoin anywhere, then hold or cash-out to any local or global currency. It’s a way to use Bitcoin as payment infrastructure for moving value globally, including cash-to-cash transfers.

On top of Bitcoin is the Lightning Network, a 2nd layer scaling solution that enables real bitcoin transactions that can be finalized instantly, in amounts less than a penny, and for low-to-no cost. The combination of Bitcoin and Lightning creates an alternate financial network, one where money can quickly and efficiently move in, out, and through – no 1-5 business day settlement, no bank holidays, no opaque fees, and no arbitrary limits.

The Strike API is your gateway to using Bitcoin for better payments.

It makes cash-to-bitcoin and bitcoin-to-cash transactions programmatic and instant, letting you move value locally or globally through the Bitcoin and Lightning networks, while operating with whichever money best suits you. This means you can choose to operate exclusively with cash, for whatever tax, volatility, or accounting purposes, while gaining the speeds and scales of Bitcoin and Lightning.

With the Strike API, you can hold a cash and/or bitcoin balance, then begin making transactions:

  • Exchanging: Programmatically buy or sell bitcoin using your own custom logic and limits
  • Sending: Send cash or bitcoin payments through the Bitcoin and Lightning Networks, including to Bitcoin addresses, Lightning invoices, LNURLs, and Lightning addresses
  • Receiving: Receive cash or bitcoin payments via the Bitcoin and Lightning networks by programmatically generating Bitcoin addresses and Lightning invoices on-demand, displayable as QR codes or character strings
  • Directing: Receive payments and have them delivered to a designated Strike user’s account, enabling complex 3rd party interactions.
  • Making payouts to bank accounts: Send cash payouts to 1st or 3rd party USD bank accounts via ACH or wire transfer

With these functions you can build borderless transactions into your app. Read more about the Strike API, check out the documentation, or contact partners@strike.me to get started.

Strike OAuth Connect

Strike OAuth Connect is an integration that enables Strike users to log in to their accounts, grant permissions, and send payments from their Strike balance – all within your app.

This means you can embed Strike wallet-transactions directly in your app, so that a global network of users can transact with their own money within your app’s unique experience.

How does it work?

Strike OAuth Connect is integrated with the Strike API. Following Strike’s OAuth setup instructions, you can add a “Log in with Strike” button in your app, enabling users to log in using their Strike credentials. After logging in, they can grant permissions to your app to transact using their balances, within set parameters and limits. With permissions in place, your app can then make specific Strike API requests on the user’s behalf, such as sending or receiving cash or bitcoin payments from their balance.

This unlocks new design space for app developers and businesses. App features can now add transactions, capable of sending or receiving user funds through the Bitcoin or Lightning Networks. This opens the door for building real micro or macro transactions into any app interaction:

  • “Like” a social media post to send 100 sats (fraction of a penny)
  • Stream 10 sats-per-second of video viewed
  • Spend $5 to unlock premium content
  • Paywall email addresses or DMs by requiring a micro-payment for message delivery
  • Generate a QR code that delivers 1,000 sats to the first 10 people who scan
  • Offer in-game rewards or purchases, payable immediately

All transactions are made with the user’s actual balance, transacted via the Bitcoin or Lightning Networks, and delivered to any Strike user or Bitcoin or Lightning-enabled wallet globally.

When coupled with the Strike widget and the Strike API, you can now onboard users into bitcoin, let them hold their own balance, then let them make borderless transactions.

Read more about Strike OAuth Connect and how to get started in the API documentation.

Read more

Lightning

What is the Lightning Network?

The global bitcoin payments network that’s instant, private, and low-to-no cost