Since Wednesday this week, over 150 people have had the chance to order pizza from Domino’s and pay in cryptos through a new web portal set up by an innovative startup called Fold. All this has been enabled by Bitcoin’s new Lightning Network that allows for faster off-chain transactions. Fold has capitalized on this advantage to build a viable business, although the Lightning Network is still in its beta stage.
Making Bitcoin Fun Again
According to Fold’s Will Reeves, who works as the product lead, the new web portal able to facilitate purchases with Bitcoin is meant to bring back some fun to the Bitcoin world. Also, it makes a point to demonstrate that the Lightning Network could be the way to take Bitcoin mainstream and rack up its global adoption.
Besides plans to launch a mobile app to run on iOS and Android in the coming months, Fold aims to integrate this new functionality with more popular enterprises like Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, Uber, Whole Foods, and Target.
At the moment, the above-mentioned entities aren’t official partners, but Fold makes orders on behalf of the customers and converts the cryptos to fiat. The startup was incubated by a venture studio named Thesis and is now looking for more funds to expand its retail offerings.
Performance
According to Reeves, the company already has over 1,500 monthly active customers and has recorded around 35,000 transactions since it entered the market back in 2014.
Fold plans to find partners among crypto wallet developers to facilitate better usage and integration for its mobile app. One of the reasons for this drive is to ease the struggle that most users face when using the lightning wallet to place orders.
Reeves estimates that the wallet integration will increase Fold’s sales conversion, given that the company currently receives over 1,500 orders but achieves only 10% conversion rate due to the issues faced by customers using the lightning wallet.
