Block Matrix, the company behind social media bitcoin tipping service Bottle Pay, just received a fresh round of funding.
The company has come off of a $2 million seed funding round at a time when the Lightning Network, the second layer bitcoin payment network leveraged by Bottle Pay, continues to enjoy steady growth. A Bottle Pay press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine noted that the Lightning Network currently supports over 10,000 nodes, with 800 BTC in liquidity spread across some 35,000 channels (private channels, it adds, are not included in this figure and would likely increase this figure).
Because of the Lightning Network’s promising growth, and the company’s tinkering with other cryptocurrencies and blockchain solutions, Bottle Pay will remain a “Bitcoin only product,” according to founder Peter Cheyne.
“… there is simply no other candidate,” he said in a statement. “We have been patiently waiting for a Bitcoin Layer 2 solution to reach a level of maturity that would provide the foundations for us to create Bottle Pay. The potential created by the Lightning Network is huge. It’s allowing us to fully unleash the potential of Bitcoin, and get the technology in the hands of everyone.”
Bottle Pay, which launched three months ago, is growing in step with the technology that its service is built on, boasting 100 percent growth month-over-month since launching. Its web app facilitates Lightning Network micropayments through social media or chat services, much like its first-to-market competitor, Tippin.me, which is currently only available on Twitter (by contrast, Bottle Pay is available on Twitter, GitHub, Telegram, Reddit and Instagram, among other platforms).
Bottle Pay’s service is a more buttoned-up version of the community-created tipping bots that populate forums like Reddit. For its part, Bottle Pay hopes to create an easy tipping rail for average and veteran bitcoin users alike, with an aim to open up the service’s tools to developers so that it can be rolled out on as many services as possible.
“We believe that people with an inspiring vision can change the world for the better,” Peter O’Donoghue, head of operations and co-founder at Bottle Pay, said in the release. “Bottle Pay facilitates new and easy ways for our users to exchange value between each other, and will provide the means for creators to develop on our tech stack. Overall, our goal is to deliver huge social, as well as economic, value through the technology we are creating.”
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