It's nice to see some new competition emerging to contend with Bitpay. They seem to have solid heads on their shoulders. Segwit-supporting, Lightning-integrated, and they plan to stay Bitcoin-only. The investor is Tim Draper, who I also think is pretty visionary.
Some excerpts from the article:
Bitcoin Payment Processor OpenNode Gets $1.25M From Investors
Bitcoin payment processor OpenNode has announced a seed investment round of $1.25 million with venture capitalist Tim Draper and early-stage investment firm Draper Associates.
"We were very selective with whom we chose to bring on as our investor. We are very excited to have Draper Associates on board because they share in our long-term vision of hyperbitcoinization. We plan on staying as a bitcoin-only payments platform, and Tim gets that."
For OpenNode, the growth has been steady and healthy despite the downturn in the market. According to Almeida, the continuous development of infrastructure from protocol developers would see the company grow even further.
"By 2019, we plan to be the leading bitcoin payments platform. Also, more importantly, we aim to push microtransactions onto gaming/streaming/content platform and create payment models never before possible."
OpenNode was founded in April 2018 as a payment processor that facilitates bitcoin payments for individuals and businesses. The processor supports bitcoin protocol implementations like SegWit and the Lightning Network, offering instant settlement of transactions with low fees.
Perhaps, one of the standout features of OpenNode is its integration with the Lightning Network, which has seen much integration from blockchain startups, since Lightning Labs launched the first beta release in March 2018.
Full article
here.
Draper said on Twitter, "Finally!! Now you will be able to use bitcoin to buy Starbucks, Amazon.com, Teslas, houses, etc. Fast transactions!" Interesting...