\n<\/p>\n
Founder:<\/strong> Graham Krizek<\/p>\n Date Founded:<\/strong> October 2020<\/p>\n Location of Headquarters:<\/strong> Wichita, Kansas<\/p>\n Number of Employees: <\/strong>17<\/p>\n Website:<\/strong> https:\/\/www.voltage.cloud\/<\/a><\/p>\n Public or Private?<\/strong> Private<\/p>\n In 2012, soon after Graham Krizek discovered Bitcoin and subsequently began contributing to Bitcoin Core and building his own applications on Bitcoin, he noticed an issue that was hindering Bitcoin builders.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem that I saw was that everyone was building everything from scratch \u2014 over and over and over again,\u201d Krizek told Bitcoin Magazine. \u201cThere was no cloud environment where you could just spin up Bitcoin infrastructure and be able to start developing against it.\u201d<\/p>\n At the time, Krizek didn\u2019t feel compelled to act on this issue, though. He was still primarily focused on his career as a software engineer outside of the Bitcoin space, working for various startups as well as companies as large as Salesforce, while contributing to Bitcoin in his free time.<\/p>\n But something shifted within him when he learned about the Lightning Network.<\/p>\n He saw its potential and knew that it would have to be made easier to use if it were to be widely adopted.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I found Lightning, I said to myself \u2018Okay, this is the next phase of Bitcoin adoption, the thing that\u2019s going to really drive it to the next level,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, I saw the same pattern happening as I did with Bitcoin. Everyone kept starting from scratch while building, but the problems were more intense because Lightning is that much more complicated,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like \u2018We need a cloud provider where you can just click a button and have a Lightning node running and maintained for you.\u2019 It can just be there so we can develop applications and build the projects we want to build much easier, much faster.\u201d<\/p>\n And so Krizek got to work in creating such a product.<\/p>\n He shared the initial iteration of it with friends and acquaintances, many of whom began using it so much that the project demanded more of his attention.<\/p>\n \u201cThe usage grew to a point where I was like, \u2018Man, I either need to shut this down because I can\u2019t maintain it anymore or I need to turn this into a business and do it for real,\u2019\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n He decided on the latter, and by late 2020, he\u2019d founded Voltage<\/a>.<\/p>\n Voltage abstracts away the complexities of using Lightning by allowing users to deploy a Lightning node and spin up a channel in just a few clicks.<\/p>\n While Voltage hosts your node in its cloud, its public key, peers, channels, balance and transactions all remain private, as all of the traffic routed through the node is transferred via Tor.<\/p>\n While your node is running in the Voltage cloud, which is supported by the Google Cloud and several other cloud service providers, Voltage also helps users manage liquidity and offers other forms of customer support.<\/p>\n Essentially, Voltage abstracts away the difficulties of engaging with Lightning, while supporting its users in the process. And it does this in efforts to help institutions more readily adopt Lightning. Krizek also mentioned they have new products and capabilities to help even traditional finance companies with the integration.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission of Voltage is to make Bitcoin and the Lightning Network accessible to every business on the planet,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n \u201cLightning is fantastic. It\u2019s got a lot of really amazing capabilities, but it can be really hard to wrap your head around it and especially to incorporate it for business operations \u2014 especially for businesses that maybe aren\u2019t in the Bitcoin or crypto space,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWe make it easy to use and plug in.\u201d<\/p>\n In the past year, notable companies such as major crypto exchange Coinbase<\/a> and Latin America\u2019s largest fintech bank Nubank<\/a> have incorporated Lightning into their operations.<\/p>\n Krizek sees this trend of crypto exchanges, neobanks and other financial service platforms onboarding to Lightning continuing in the year ahead.<\/p>\n \u201cFinance companies are definitely going to be the biggest movers because if you can take the value of sub-second settlement with zero fees and apply that to a big payment processor that does global payments, it\u2019s an incredible value add for their business,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n What is more, Krizek sees companies outside of the Bitcoin, crypto and finance space also beginning to utilize Lightning in 2025, in part, because companies like Voltage are making it easier to do so.<\/p>\n \u201c2025 will be a big year for starting to branch out of our niche market,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n \u201cThe technology has still been a little rough around the edges for a big company like Walmart to be like, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re going to plug this in now.\u2019 Even with Voltage, we haven\u2019t been perfect the entire time with making Lightning super easy to use,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve made huge strides in the last like year, though, and we have a lot more coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n Another major hurdle for companies looking to adopt Lightning is the risk that comes with managing bitcoin\u2019s volatility.<\/p>\n But that risk doesn\u2019t exist if companies send Tether (USDT) over Lightning instead of bitcoin, which they will be able to do soon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Krizek is optimistic about USDT coming to Lightning, as he believes it will spur growth on the network.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that we\u2019re going to have a lot of products and solutions around it,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not even just me being personally excited about it. A lot of our customer base is very excited about it. They\u2019re asking for it directly from us because stablecoins are pretty much the biggest use case in crypto today,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you couple stablecoins with sub-second settlement fees and very low fees, that\u2019s a huge unlock. With fees on Tron getting more expensive. People are looking for an alternative.\u201d<\/p>\n (Tron has been the leading blockchain for stablecoin transactions<\/a> because of how low fees on the network have been historically.)<\/p>\n As far as USDT running over Lightning potentially presenting a security risk to Bitcoin (as I think it does<\/a>), Krizek doesn\u2019t seem concerned.<\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t worry me at all,\u201d said Krizek.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that we\u2019ve advanced since the Blocksize War<\/a> in terms of takeovers, as I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as easy for a large institution to coerce the Bitcoin ecosystem like some did during the Blocksize Wars,\u201d he added, referring to Tether potentially gaining outsized influence over Bitcoin.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s even better to integrate something like Tether (USDT) on Lightning because it\u2019s a peer-to-peer network \u2014 it\u2019s not public consensus. So, you have much more ability to say \u2018Hey, if you don\u2019t want to participate in the USDT transfers, just don\u2019t do it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Crypto Czar David Sacks is an investor in Voltage (via his venture capital firm, Craft Ventures<\/a>). This would indicate that he has some understanding of the Lightning Network and the role of bitcoin as a medium of exchange.<\/p>\n So, does this mean that the U.S. is on the verge of embracing bitcoin as such?<\/p>\n According to Krizek, not exactly.<\/p>\nHow Voltage Works<\/h2>\n
What Types Of Companies Are Using Lightning?<\/h2>\n
Tether (USDT) On Lightning<\/h2>\n
Moving Forward In A Pro-Bitcoin Regulatory Environment<\/h2>\n