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One of the youngest crypto entrepreneurs today, Jack Mallers has made it to Forbes’ 30 under 30 when he was just 27 years old, earning his crypto cred as a founder of Zap, a parent company of Strike, a popular no-fee app that allows users to transact on Bitcoin’s Layer 2 Lightning Network using their debit cards or bank account, without the need to purchase BTC. And if this wasn’t enough to win the admiration of Bitcoiners, Mallers has also established himself as a central figure in El Salvador’s move to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, establishing Strike as the main payment solution in the country. Curious to learn about how Mallers managed to achieve such success at his age, along with his education, background, current net worth, and the roots of his passion for Bitcoin? Then keep reading!
Early life and education
Jack Mallers was born on April 9, 1994 in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up being immersed into the world of finance from his early years, as both his father and grandfather were renowned finance experts. The grandfather, Bill Mallers Sr., was a futures trader and a chairman of the Chicago Board of Trade, and the father, Bill Mallers Jr., founded one of the largest futures brokerages in Chicago. Bill Mallers Jr. was also the one who introduced Jack to Bitcoin in 2013, unknowingly shaping the future career trajectory of his son.
Although Jack initially enrolled at St. John’s University in New York, he dropped out after the first year to pursue full-time his passion for fintech, signing up for the coding bootcamp in Chicago. This was the time when Mallers started to build his skillset as a programer through various coding projects, including the client management tool for personal fitness trainers and an app that assisted wheelchair users in finding best transportation routes.
The creation of Zap
Although Mallers has been lurking around Bitcoin since 2013, when he first learned about the first cryptocurrency from his father, it was only later, in 2017, when he realized the full potential that Bitcoin’s Lightning network holds for the payments industry. The young entrepreneur was also quick to identify that one of the main obstacles on the path towards Bitcoin adoption is lagging UI (user interface). A user-friendly Bitcoin wallet that would utilize the low transaction fees and improved scalability of the Lightning Network was a still uncornered niche at the time—and Mallers’ first venture, Zap, aimed to fill it.
Zap was launched in summer 2017 as an intuitive non-custoial wallet designed specifically for transacting on the Lightning Network. Mallers initially identified cannabis dispensaries as the target customer base for the new payments app, as most such businesses are cut off from the US banking system due to the marijuana being classified as an illegal control substance on a federal level despite legalization in the majority of the states. As a result, most have to operate primarily in cash, which brings more risks and challenges to running a business. However, it wasn’t just cannabis merchants who got hooked on Zap—more and more users flocked to the wallet to benefit from the advantages offered by Bitcoin and Lightning Network.
So what is Zap, anyways?
Any description of Zap wallet and its impact on the cryptocurrency community would be incomplete without at least a few words about the Lightning Network, integration with which is one of the core features of Zap.
Lightning Network is a Layer-2 protocol built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain which addresses Bitcoin scalability issues by enabling nearly instant off-chain transactions. The mechanism behind this blockchain magic is simple yet elegant: two parties can open a payment channel by creating a multisignature address on the Bitcoin blockchain, where both deposit a certain amount of BTC and from now on can make unlimited transactions off-chain. Only opening and closing transactions get recorded on the mainnet, significantly reducing the computational load and costs. What’s more, it isn’t even necessary to open a direct channel to transact on the Lightning Network, as it can also route payments across multiple channels, such as when Alice wants to pay Carol and the payment goes through Bob who has direct channels open with both Carol and Alice.
Conceived as an easy and user-friendly way for non-Bitcoin natives to interact with the Lightning Network, Zap makes all the benefits of the protocol—such as speed, scalability, and low costs—available to the broader audience. On top of that, Zap is also cross-platform, available to users on multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its source code is publicly available to anyone to inspect and contribute, which strengthens the overall security of the project. And speaking of security further, Zap is a non-custodial wallet, empowering users to take full control over their private keys and funds.
Yet arguably the most significant thing about Zap wallet isn’t its security or convenience of use (although these are definitely admirable on their part!), but the fact that it has become a foundation for another Zap’s product, Strike.
The rise of Strike
In January 2020, Mallers announced Strike, an app that enables users to transact on the Lightning Network without ever touching Bitcoin or setting up a wallet. As a rebrand of Zap’s earlier product Olympus, which was initially designed as Lightning-based fiat ramp, Strike only requires a debit card or a bank account to transact on the network.
“Bank accounts and debit cards can now speak to nodes all over the world, and nodes all over the world can now speak to bank accounts and debit cards. The possibilities are endless and the sky is the limit,” Mallers wrote in his blog post.
Cryptography magic aside, the way it works is quite simple: if you want to pay Alice, Strike will first auto-convert your fiat of choice into BTC. Next, the said bitcoin goes to Strike Lightning node residing in the jurisdiction of Alice’s currency, converted into fiat, and deposited to her Strike account.
While hardline Bitcoiners can question the advisability of bringing to the Lightning Network more users who won’t even purchase BTC, there is a solid practical argument for Zap to do so.
First, taxes. Spending Bitcoin on any goods or services is considered a taxable event in the US that needs to be reported to the IRS. As a result, accepting Bitcoin for products is simply not worth the headache for most small businesses, and most merchants that Zap initially targeted with its first wallet eventually opted out.
Second, volatility. Bitcoin’s inherent volatility is what is tampering its adoption for everyday purchases, as both consumers and merchants are hesitant to bear the associated risks. Consumers may be reluctant to spend their BTC holdings if they believe its value will rise, while merchants face the risk of receiving payments that could significantly drop in value by the time they convert it to their local currency.
Finally, the technical barrier for entry into Bitcoin is simply too high for most mainstream consumers. Setting up a wallet, buying BTC and managing the secret phrase is way too much for those who don’t care about Bitcoin’s censorship resistance and simply want a convenient payment experience. And this is totally alright, too: not everyone is a hardcore cypherpunk born with a keyboard under their fingers. For the other 95%, there is Strike, which can be used for remittance payments, internet tipping, and buying/selling Bitcoin as well if you wish to give it a try.
Strike’s impact on El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption
El Salvador, a small Caribbean nation that has been struggling with economic woes since the end of the civil war in 1992, recognized Bitcoin as a legal tender three years ago in an effort to achieve financial autonomy. Before adopting the Bitcoin standard, the only official fiat currency of El Salvador was the US dollar, which limited the government’s ability to maintain an independent monetary policy.
While El Salvador’s move to legalize Bitcoin caused quite a stir in the media, Zap’s instrumental role in the mission got much less coverage. According to CoinDesk, Zap’s CEO Jack Mallers offered his personal assistance to help the initiative take off, which led to months of meetings with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Strike moving its headquarters to San Salvador.
The meetings with Bukele proved undoubtedly fruitful for Strike: El Salvador became the first non-US market Maller’s company expanded to, onboarding around 20,000 Salvadorans a day during the app’s peak activity. Mallers framed Zap’s success in the country as a humanitarian mission to bring supportive fintech infrastructure to the heavily underbanked population: only 36 percent of citizens had a bank account in 2021, while approximately 22 percent of the country’s GDP comes from remittances from Salvadorans living abroad, particularly in the United States. Before Strike, the most common way of sending money to El Salvador was driving to the Western Union’s office and paying a hefty 20% fee for a transfer.
But Strike aims to change that.
"We want to make cross-border payments free," Mallers said. "We want to solve the remittance problem for places that need it the most."
Zap’s partnerships and funding
In 2020, Strike announced a partnership with Visa, which allowed the startup to offer Visa cards to consumer app users. One year later, Zap tapped Bittrex Global to expand its services to up to 200 countries and list more cryptocurrencies in the app.
In August 2022, Strike raised $80 million in a funding round led by Ten31, a venture capital firm focused on Bitcoin infrastructure projects. This funding round also saw participation from established investors like Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Wyoming, and several notable Bitcoin investors. The infusion of capital was aimed at expanding Strike's team, scaling its infrastructure, and accelerating its global expansion.
In September 2021, Twitter added a Bitcoin tipping feature that relies on third-party infrastructure providers, including Strike.
What is Jack Mallers net worth?
While estimating the net worth of private individuals is always a challenging task, there are some rough guesses that allow us to place Jack Mallers’ net worth between $50 and $100 million.
The provided figures are based on several factors, namely Mallers substantial bitcoin holdings accumulated over the years in the crypto industry, his stake in Strike, and possible other investments in some promising crypto and fintech projects.
It’s known that Mallers began investing in Bitcoin early, around 2013, which has since significantly appreciated in value. His stake in Strike, a Bitcoin-native neobank leveraging the Lightning Network, is another major contributor to his wealth, as the company has seen impressive growth since its inception in 2017.
Overall, Mallers' net worth can be seen as a testament to his entrepreneurial spirit and his valuable contribution to the development of the Bitcoin ecosystem.
If you would like to learn more about the net worth of other finance & crypto personalities, take a look at our articles on author and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki, Social Capital's CEO Chamath Palihapitiya, and ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood.
