Jack Mallers

Jack Mallersis a prominent figure in the cryptocurrency community as the founder andCEO of Zap, Strike's parent company. Strike is a popular no-fee app that allows users to quickly make and receive payments over Bitcoin's Lightning Network. Mallers was born in Chicago, Illinois, and is the third generation in his family to go into finance. He attended college at St. John's University in New York but dropped out after a year to attend a coding school in Chicago. He gained an interest in technology at the coding school and started building apps. Mallers was first introduced to Bitcoin by his father in 2013, but he began looking at cryptocurrency more seriously a few years later.

In 2017, he recognizedthe potential of the Lightning Networkto change the way we view payments. In the summer of 2017, he introduced Zap, a user-friendly non-custodial wallet that could make payments over the Lightning Network. Mallers' goal with Strike was to lower the barrier for using the Lightning Network. He believes Bitcoin, and specifically the Lightning Network, to be a superior payment network that allows for innovation, financial inclusion, accessibility, and cheaper, more efficient financial services.