Bitcoin payment service Strike expands to 65 countries, beyond the US, El Salvador, and Argentina, and says it has taken a regulation-first approach in the US
Here's Why Tweets: Wayne Vaughan / @waynevaughan : It's sad that @Strike is incentivized to move outside the US because regulators are hostile to #Bitcoin and stablecoins. Strike has an excellent product. The US should embrace entrepreneurs like @jackmallers and help them succeed, not drive them offshore https://fortune.com/... Leo Schwartz / @leomschwartz : I spoke with @jackmallers about building a global payments app, his decision to move Strike's global HQ to El Salvador, and the regulatory situation in the US: https://fortune.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Strike's international rollout extends a product strategy that previously reached merchants through a Shopify Lightning payment integration in the US. The company is now pairing wider availability with an explicitly regulation-first posture at home.
The expansion also follows earlier scrutiny of Strike's US licensing footprint tied to its El Salvador role, making regulatory positioning central to how the service scales rather than a secondary compliance issue.
First-order effects
- Strike makes its Bitcoin payment service available across 65 countries, broadening its potential user and merchant base beyond its earlier US, El Salvador, and Argentina footprint.
- In the US, Strike frames its operating approach around regulatory compliance, directly shaping where and how it can offer services.
Second-order effects
- Payment providers offering Bitcoin- or Lightning-based transfers face a clearer trade-off: expand across jurisdictions while adapting product operations to local regulatory constraints.
- Merchants and users reached through payment integrations such as Strike's Shopify Lightning option gain a potentially broader cross-border payments network, but availability will remain market-specific.
Third-order effects
- The move is an instance of regulated liquidity fragmentation: payment networks may be global in technical design while their commercial access is divided by national compliance regimes.
- If this pattern persists, crypto-payment companies will compete as much on licensing, local partnerships, and jurisdictional operations as on settlement speed or network reach.
The trend: Crypto payment networks are pursuing global distribution while increasingly treating regulation as a core constraint on product design and market access.