Founders: Roy Shenfield, Roy Erez and Yacoub Salama
Date of Establishment: 2018
Headquarters location: far
The amount of Bitcoin held in the vault: Dozens were detained in Breeze Lightning's contract
Number of Employees: 11
website: https://breez.technology/
Public or private? private
Roy Shenfeld says the time for orange pilling is over.
Shenfeld, one of the three founders of Breez, a company that provides software development kits (SDKs) to organizations looking to leverage the Bitcoin Lightning Network, believes that while bringing people into the Bitcoin fold through education has helped expand the Bitcoin community, However, it will not be the driving force in onboarding the next wave of Bitcoin users.
“Maybe everyone in the Bitcoin ecosystem right now is orange, but I don't feel like the circles are expanding, and they're certainly not expanding fast enough,” Shenfeld told Bitcoin Magazine. “Drives adoption – what drives change in people's behavior – is technology.”
That's why Sheinfeld, a software developer by trade, is committed to making it easier for businesses to use the accelerator network. He wants to see More apps and services are using Lightning for payments, not to create more Lightning-specific apps. Think of Spotify using Lightning to stream satellites to creators instead of developers creating more Lightning wallets.
“I always give the example of a digital camera. When the digital camera first came out, everyone started using it as a replacement for the film camera, but it didn't change human behavior,” Shenfeld says.
“It was only when the digital camera was integrated into a mobile device that it was able to change human behavior. Today, you can't sit down to a meal without taking a photo of your food before eating it. That was a radical change in human behavior, and that's what I want to happen with Bitcoin.”
“I want to change human behavior because the utility of Bitcoin is something that people will not be able to resist and use.”
And Shenfield is ideally positioned to help facilitate this change, as he has been with the Lightning since the network's inception.
History Breeze
Founded in 2018, Breez is as old as the Lightning Network itself.
“We were the first company to start a business on the Lightning Network,” Shenfeld said. “When the first mainnet transactions appeared on the Lightning Network, we founded Breez to help transform Bitcoin from a store of value to a medium of exchange.”
The team at Breez has started launching the first version Lightning wallet. Thus he became the first Breeze Lightning Service Provider (LSP)It is a term coined by Sheinfeld himself. Shenfield & Company. It also brought the first version of Audio Broadcast 2.0 to the market, allowing users to broadcast satellite broadcasts to their favorite audio providers, a service popularized by fountain.
But over the past year and a half, Shenfeld and the Breeze team have focused on developing… Breeze SDKBecause, as Shenfeld shared, “We believe Lightning should be a commodity. Everyone should have the ability to use Lightning if they want to.”
Breeze SDK
The Breez SDK is a free, open source (FOSS) non-custodial solution that any person, company or organization can use. It's supported by Blockstream green lightwhich enables Breez to run end-user nodes in the cloud while keeping the service non-custodial, as private keys remain in the user's hands.
The Breez SDK also allows users to exchange Bitcoin between the main chain and the Lightning Network and provides cash ramps from third-party providers.
If online retailers, for example, want to accept Bitcoin payments via Lightning, all they have to do is integrate the Breez SDK API from Breeze GitHub In their app or website, which doesn't take much time at all.
“I can tell you from our experience working with our partners, it takes days to add Lightning payments to their orders,” Shenfeld said. “For some partners, it takes longer — it takes weeks — but that's not because of the complexity of using the Breez SDK. It's really about the user experience they want to deliver when integrating Lightning payments.
Shenfeld also added that “using the API programmatically is very straightforward for every type of developer,” and explained that Breez was designed to be free and open source so that it reflects the nature of Bitcoin. This design is still profitable for Breez, as the company makes money when end-user payments are routed through its nodes.
Companies and products such as rotation, A little square And Blockstream Green Now use the Breez SDK, but one can't help but wonder why more companies and products aren't using this new technology.
What's holding back greater adoption of the Breez SDK?
Since Breez provides a convenient way to integrate Lightning into an application, why aren't more companies taking advantage of it?
In Sheinfeld's view, the challenge revolves around how most people perceive Bitcoin.
“I think a lot of people still don't believe in bitcoin as a medium of exchange — even some bitcoin users,” Shenfeld said.
“As companies like Breez work to lower the barrier to entry and enable developers to integrate Lightning, the challenge is no longer a technical one,” he added.
“What we hope to do is get enough bottom-up traction from the partners we work with and cross the Bitcoin credibility chasm where when everyday people who aren't familiar with Bitcoin hear 'Bitcoin,' they understand, 'Well, Bitcoin is Bitcoin.' “Money. I can send and receive Bitcoin.”
Shenfeld went on to share how we are starting to cross this chasm by creating “an ecosystem of Bitcoin-focused apps that allow you to interact with Bitcoin as a form of money.”
Instead of trying to convince people that bitcoin is the best form of money, he believes it will prove itself that way as it competes with fiat currencies and other cryptocurrencies. To start this competition, he wants to see Lightning integrated into multi-currency wallets, before eventually seeing it integrated into fintech applications.
“There's no reason why PayPal or Revolut can't integrate Lightning,” Shenfeld said.
“Once you hack all of these types of middle exchange services, you're ready to move to the next level, which is integrating Bitcoin into mainstream applications,” he added.
“My time frame is 10 years. I want to see a major app like Uber or Spotify integrate Lightning in the next 10 years.
Avoid regulatory scrutiny
Just a week before I spoke to Shenfeld, Phoenix walletone of the most popular Lightning wallets on the market today, It has chosen to stop serving customers in the United Statesfearing a greater regulatory crackdown on self-custodial wallets in the wake of the US Department of Justice's arrest of Samourai wallet developers.
When I asked Shenfeld if he was concerned that US regulators might turn to Breeze next, he calmly answered “no” before offering his reasons.
“Let's say this very clearly: being a self-custodial wallet is permissible in the United States,” Shenfeld said. “Restraint is the worst thing that can happen. We must regulate ourselves, but we do not need to take an extreme side more extreme than the law itself.
He went on to explain that self-made wallet makers are not required to obtain a money transfer license or a money service business license.
“Breez does not control users’ funds,” Shenfeld stressed.
Acknowledging the Lightning FUD
Many in the Bitcoin space consider the accelerator network to be a… to failBecause network adoption has been slow.
Sheinfeld believes some of the criticism is justified.
“We deserve Lightning FUD,” Shenfeld said.
“There's good marketing and there's bad marketing. Bad marketing is selling something that doesn't exist: Lightning is a magic solution to all of Bitcoin's problems — unlimited scalability, free transactions, and a perfect user experience. That doesn't exist,” he explained.
“We didn't do a very good job of explaining Lightning in these early years of the network, and we created hype that the technology wasn't able to achieve, so we deserve the backlash we received.”
Shenfeld continued that he is optimistic about the role Lightning will play as new technologies reach Bitcoin.
“If you take a look at the technology landscape right now – Cashews, And covers And Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions – all of these various solutions will interact with each other using Lightning.
What's next for Breeze?
In the coming weeks, Breez will begin a business-to-business (B2B) marketing campaign aimed at onboarding companies that don't currently understand the power of Bitcoin and Lightning.
“Marketing essentially bridges the gap between the power of technology and the usefulness of technology,” Shenfeld said. “If people can't fill that gap themselves, someone has to help them fill that gap, and we need good marketing to do that.”
Shenfeld is convinced that it's time for Breeze to start marketing and serving companies outside the Bitcoin space.
“For a very long time, we've been in the Bitcoin-only community,” Shenfeld said.
“We need to get out of the bubble and start pushing our offerings beyond our ecosystem,” he added.
“Cryptocurrency solutions need to be Lightning-aware. Fintech solutions have to be Lightning-aware. Major applications have to be Lightning-aware. This is what we will focus more on moving forward.”