Founder: Graham Krizek
Established: October 2020
Head office location: Wichita, Kansas
Number of employees: 17
Website: https://www.voltage.cloud/
Public or private? Private
In 2012, Graham Krizek discovered Bitcoin and then contributed to Bitcoin Core and began building his own applications with Bitcoin, he realized the problem hampering Bitcoin builders.
“The problem I saw was that everyone was building everything from scratch, over and over again,” Krizek told Bitcoin Magazine. “There was no cloud environment where we could spin up our Bitcoin infrastructure and start developing it against it.”
At the time, Krizek was not forced to act on this issue. He focuses primarily on his career as a software engineer outside the Bitcoin space, working for a variety of startups and large companies like Salesforce, but contributes to Bitcoin in his free time. .
But something changed within him when he learned about the Lightning Network.
He saw the possibility and knew that if it was widely adopted, it had to be easy to use.
“When I found Lightning, I told myself.
“We then saw the same pattern going on as we did with Bitcoin. Everyone kept starting from scratch because lightning is much more complicated, but lightning is so complicated. The problem has become even more intense,” he added.
“I developed an application, “I needed a cloud provider so I can run and maintain the Lightning node by clicking the button.” and build the project I want to build much easier and much faster. You can do it. ”
And Krizek worked on creating such a product.
He shared his first iterations with friends and acquaintances. Many of him began to use it very much and demanded more of his attention from the project.
“Using is, ‘Man, I can’t keep this up so I need to shut it down or turn this into business and do the real thing,” Krizek said.
He decided on the latter and established the voltage by the second half of 2020.
How voltage works
Voltage abstracts the complexity of using lightning bolts by allowing users to deploy Lightning nodes several clicks to spin up the channels.
The voltage hosts the node in the cloud, but all traffic through the node is forwarded through the TOR, so all public keys, peers, channels, balances, and transactions remain private.
Voltages supported by Google Cloud and several other cloud service providers While nodes are running in clouds, voltages also help users manage fluidity and provide other forms of customer support .
Essentially, voltage abstracts the difficulty of engaging in lightning whilst supporting the user in the process. And it is working to help agencies adopt lightning more easily. Krizek also said they have new products and capabilities to support even traditional financial companies with integration.
“The mission of voltage is to make Bitcoin and the Lightning Network accessible to all businesses on the planet,” Krizek said.
“Lightning is amazing. It’s really great ability, but it can be really difficult to wrap around your head and incorporate it in, especially for business operations.
“It’s easier to use and makes plugins easier.”
Which types of companies use lightning bolts?
Over the past year, leading companies at Crypto Exchange Coinbase and well-known companies such as Nubank, Latin America’s largest fintech bank, have incorporated lightning into their businesses.
Krizek sees this trend in crypto exchanges, neobanks and other financial services platforms that have been mounted on lightning for the next year.
“Finance companies will definitely be the biggest movers because if they can get the value of sub-second settlement at zero fees and apply it to a large payment processor that makes global payments, it would be believable for their business. It’s an extra value that’s not possible.” Krizek.
Furthermore, Krizek has also started using Lightning in 2025, as companies like Voltage make it easier.
“2025 will be a big year to begin diverging from the niche market,” Krizek said.
“This technology is still a bit rough as it turns out like a big company like Walmart, like ‘Hey, I’m going to plug this in’. Even with the voltage, it has always been not perfect for making Lightning extremely easy to use,” he added.
“But I think we made a lot of progress in our last year, but there’s more to come out.”
Another major hurdle for companies looking to adopt lightning is the risks associated with managing Bitcoin volatility.
However, if a company sends tethers (USDTs) to lightning instead of Bitcoin, that risk is not present.
Lightning Tether (USDT)
Krizek is optimistic about USDT coming to lightning. Because he thinks it will drive growth on the network.
“I think we have a lot of products and solutions around it,” says Krizek.
“We’re not just personally excited about it. A lot of our customer base is very excited about it. As Stubcoin is a use case for most crypto today, they’re not just us I’m asking for that directly from,” he added.
“If you couple Stablecoins with sub-second payment fees and very low fees, it’s very unlocked. Tron’s fees have become more expensive. People are looking for alternatives.”
(Tron was the main blockchain for Stablecoin transactions, due to how low the network’s fees have been historically low.)
As long as USDT is running through lightning, and potentially presenting security risks to Bitcoin (as I think), Krizek doesn’t seem to be worried.
“It doesn’t worry about me at all,” Krizek said.
“I think it’s not that easy to force the Bitcoin ecosystem as large institutions did during block-size wars, so I think we’ve made progress since the block-size wars in terms of acquisitions. “He adds, referring to Tether, potentially gaining a huge influence on Bitcoin.
“And since it’s a peer-to-peer network, it’s even better to integrate something like Tether (USDT) into Lightning. This isn’t a public consensus. So, “Hey, I don’t want to participate in USDT transfers. Then, don’t do it.” He has a much higher ability to say. ”
Pro-Bitcoin control environment advances
US Crypto Czar David Sacks is a voltage investor (via his venture capital firm, Craft Ventures). This shows that he has some understanding of the role of Bitcoin as a lightning network and exchange medium.
So does this mean that the US is on the verge of accepting Bitcoin like that?
According to Krizek, it’s not accurate.
“Everyone is screaming in the government for a strategic Bitcoin reserve that treats Bitcoin as a valuable store,” Krizek explained.
“Over time, we’ll be hearing more and more about Bitcoin as a payment tool. We’ve first got over this strategic spare conversation and then we’ve said, “Okay, what else can we do with this?” I need to say it.
But the fact that the government portrays Bitcoin in all sorts of positive light is exciting for Krizek. In 2012, when he first entered the Bitcoin space, the government either rejected Bitcoin or was hostile to it.
“When I started with Bitcoin, it was completely ignored and the last four years have been very bad for companies like us,” Krizek said.
“We definitely saw a tone shift in this new administration. We’re still going through certain things, but we’re definitely turning the corner and heading in the right direction,” he added.
“I’m really excited to see where it can go next year. I think it’s going to be a positive thing.”
