Strike's argument is that Lightning is a settlement rail and the user does not have to care. Cash goes in one side, bitcoin moves across the network, and something spendable comes out the other.
The company behind it is Zap Solutions. Apple lists the app's developer as Zap Solutions, Inc. Two Form D filings with the SEC, in March 2021 and August 2022, are made by Zap Solutions Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation with a year of incorporation of 2020, filing from Chicago, and both list Jack Mallers as an executive officer and director.
The product has grown well past a Lightning wallet. Its own site describes buying and
selling bitcoin, free on-chain withdrawals to self-custody, recurring buys, Lightning
addresses, sending cash over Lightning so that the sender pays in dollars and the recipient
receives bitcoin, cross-border transfers using local payment methods at each end, business
accounts, and bitcoin-backed borrowing. There is an in-app Bitrefill integration for
spending. The API documented at docs.strike.me exposes the same rails programmatically:
send and receive over Bitcoin or Lightning, exchange between cash and bitcoin, and pay out
to bank accounts.
State the shape of it plainly. Strike is custodial, which is the opposite trade to running a node. The company holds the balance, and the convenience the app is built on is the same thing as the counterparty you are accepting. Its App Store listing says assets in a Strike account are fully backed one to one, and that bitcoin pledged against a loan is held with Strike or transferred to its capital providers with no further rehypothecation. The free withdrawal to self-custody is the exit, and it exists precisely because the default is not self-custody.
Mallers is also an officer of Twenty One Capital, Inc., a listed company, and signs its Form 10-K certification as its principal executive officer.