Bitcoin mining helps solve real problems for disadvantaged communities. Case and point, Gridless is a bitcoin mining company helping to bring new, sustainable energy generation to rural communities in East Africa. Gridless serves as the anchor tenant for renewable mini-grid energy providers, providing financing and reliable revenue to enable the construction and operation of new sites. The team is led by veteran entrepreneurs with deep roots in the African technology industry and an inherent desire to effect positive change in the region.
Founded in 2021, Hoseki worked in stealth to build the Bitcoin industry's first digital asset attestation service. What that will mean for Hoseki’s retail clients is that their bitcoin ownership can be easily verified to secure a mortgage or in support of any credit application. In other words, greater utility from BTC savings. But Hoseki software will also facilitate retail users’ ability to verify the digital asset reserves of client custodians, such as exchanges - on demand, elevating the standard of industry operations.
Led by Elizabeth Stark and Lalou Osuntokun, Lightning Labs develops the protocols and infrastructure that enable faster, cheaper, global, permissionless payments atop the world’s most secure and inclusive transaction ledger – the Bitcoin blockchain. From connecting unbanked communities to the global economy to facilitating money transfers in off-banking hours, Lightning Labs makes sending and receiving money significantly more efficient than is possible on legacy financial systems or centralized blockchains.
Create, share, play and earn with pnkfrg, developed by veteran industry operators who honed their skills and user insights at King while growing the blockbuster game Candy Crush. Today with bitcoin on Lightning, a new generation of gamers and creators can take their in-game rewards into the real world to save, donate, or spend. pnkfrg counters the popular trend of bleeding user data and pocketbooks to share revenue with their community of gamers. Watch and create the best video challenges on mobile with pnkfrg.
Lightning Network makes instant, nearly free, global micropayments possible. Paul Itoi envisions a future in which this empowers a distributed workforce to meaningfully supplement their income working from their smartphone. Stakwork, a microtask marketplace, pays workers via Lightning. Fast turnaround and an always-on workforce allow client companies access to a scalable workforce to handle complex tasks in real time. Sphinx, a complementary communication platform built on Lightning, facilitates community communications
Never worry about the safety of your bitcoin again – Casa empowers thousands of clients to buy, store, and manage bitcoin simply and securely, the way they want, and supported by a troop of Bitcoin-native customer service providers. Bitcoin security is an urgent problem with both user mistake and theft presenting risk to owners. Casa gathers the industry’s leading security experts and engineers into a team dedicated to making Bitcoin’s “Be your own bank” promise accessible to all.
This Central American-based team debuted on the global stage in 2021 when they powered the high volume of bitcoin payments catalyzed in El Salvador by the government’s $30 BTC airdrop to citizens. Via turnkey API, IBEX offers infrastructure services for the adoption of Lightning-facilitated payments. From POS systems to financial institutions to brick-and-mortar merchants (Starbucks and Pizza Hut are clients), IBEX makes it easy to step into the future of finance or simply to opt out of fees imposed by legacy system intermediaries.
Developing an application or business that uses the Lightning Network as rails for the instant, nearly free payments that Lightning enables shouldn’t require a dedicated engineering and devops team – and that’s where Voltage comes in. Voltage is a Lightning Network infrastructure provider, bridging the gap between the simplicity and efficiency of cloud infrastructure with the security and privacy standard that Bitcoin and Lightning command. As a result, client companies build, deploy, and scale faster and with greater agility using Voltage.
From the creator of ThunderHub, node management software integrated by category leaders such as Voltage, comes Amboss Technologies: Lightning tools and an index of the Lightning Network for professional infrastructure operators. Amboss adds a social layer to participation in the network and resources operators with critical business insight. Whom should we open a channel to - What fees should we charge - How can we grow our business – are questions that can be better answered, and answers that can be honed, with Amboss.
A few large tech companies have too much power – aggregating and monetizing user data is core to their businesses. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Clovyr is building friendly, flexible tools to bring the usability of modern apps to decentralized ones, disrupting incumbent SaaS and web hosting services by enabling technical and non-technical users to find, develop, and deploy distributed apps in a ubiquitous browser-based solution. Users maintain control of their data and infrastructure without sacrificing performance or security.
The economics of bitcoin mining has driven the field’s rapid adoption of sustainable energy and is likely to catalyze significant sustainable energy investment. Bitcoin mining is one of the most sustainable industries globally and an example that a rapid shift to sustainable energy is possible in other sectors. Satoshi Energy is at the intersection of bitcoin mining and sustainable energy, connecting sustainable energy assets with miners and providing the contract and software resources necessary to optimize the partnership.
