Founders: Will Reeves and Matt Longo
Date of Establishment: 2014; Latest company release: 2019
Headquarters location: far
The amount of Bitcoin held in the vault: “Stacking since the founding of Fold”
Number of Employees: 22
website: https://foldapp.com/
Public or private? private
Will Reeves wants Fold to be your Bitcoin bank.
This may seem counterintuitive to hardcore Bitcoin users who believe Bitcoin was created to replace banks, but Reeves, co-founder and CEO of Bitcoin… Foldsan app that allows Bitcoin fans to earn Bitcoin rewards on daily purchases as well as DCA in Bitcoin, sees things in a more realistic way.
He believes Fold will be the ultimate application to connect Bitcoin not only to the old world of traditional banking but also to the new world of Bitcoin L2s.
“You can think of us as creating a bridge to Bitcoin for those who are used to dealing with traditional banks,” Reeves told Bitcoin Magazine.
“We'll show why you should ditch your old bank and come to Fold, because we'll privilege and respect your bitcoin and unlock features that don't exist anywhere else,” he added.
“We also see a place in Fold for Lightning to facilitate faster and cheaper payments for our users who use Bitcoin as peer-to-peer cash. We also think there's a place for Liquid on Fold. There's (a place for) Lists, BitVM, and Ark, (too).”
Before you start thinking that maybe this sounds too good to be true — that it's impossible for one app to do it all — it's important to keep in mind that Reeves and his team have spent the last decade paying attention to what Bitcoin users want and need most and recalibrating Fold task accordingly.
Fold stages
Founded in 2014, Fold began as a platform that helped users sell unwanted gift cards for Bitcoin. Soon after, the company began enabling its users to purchase gift cards using their Bitcoin as well. This has helped Fold users make everyday purchases at establishments like Starbucks or in some supermarkets.
In the company's second phase, Reeves and co-founder Matt Longo flipped the script and began allowing users to purchase gift cards with fiat currencies, earning Bitcoin rewards in the process.
“We evolved because we saw that the biggest problem was that there weren't enough people with bitcoin and there weren't enough good ways to get it,” Reeves explained. “That's why we've focused so heavily on rewards – to give everyone a way to earn Bitcoin passively without a lot of risk, without requiring a lot of education.”
In this third version of Fold, Reeves believes Fold users are ready to integrate Bitcoin into their financial lives on a broader scale.
“We hope to put bitcoin at the center of people’s lives,” he said. “The product has grown, and it's not just about earning Bitcoin rewards, it's about using Bitcoin as your savings, buying it regularly and spending it.”
Make Fold a Bitcoin app for everyone
Since its inception, Fold has been a Bitcoin-only company. (Well, the platform also supports the US dollar, which some Fold users consider just another “alt-currency,” Reeves joked.)
Reeves seems to appreciate taking on the challenge of finding a balance between catering to hardcore Bitcoin users looking to get the most out of their Bitcoin and those who are new to Bitcoin.
“One thing I tried to do is bring in the best people possible to create a product that is very aware of the needs of Bitcoin users, while at the same time making the features we produce usable for people who might only be using Bitcoin for the first time,” Reeves said.
“We have a litmus test when we release things: the features have to be infinitely valuable to Twitter's local Bitcoin cap, and also good enough for that person to recommend to their mother, sister, brother or friend,” he added.
Reeves compared using Fold to using an app like Duolingo, which serves different levels of language learners.
“Duolingo is an app that is able to accommodate expert level language speakers looking to take it to the next level, as well as people looking to build their first vocabulary in another language,” Reeves explained. “This is something our design team leaned heavily on.”
Where is Fold International?
Currently, Fold only serves US residents, and when I asked my followers on X what they wanted me to ask Reeves before interviewing him for this article, I received a number of “Wen International?” Responses. (The “h” in “when” is intentionally missing for those not fluent in Bitcoin vernacular.)
Reeves noted that Fold is about to launch more products globally, although the products may not appear under the Fold brand.
“We are currently building out the infrastructure for Fold to expand into countries like Canada and the UK, and will be pioneering our rewards product first,” Reeves explained.
“When you start thinking about other countries and their unique dynamics, sometimes Fold doesn't have that experience in that local market. So, we built a platform that allows others to leverage our entire infrastructure.
“So, do you want to build a Bitcoin bank? Do you want to create a custodial and trading account and attach a bank account to a debit card and all that? You can leverage this technology to launch something internationally. This will allow us to scale much faster with experts in the local area.”
Reeves shared that this is how Fold's intellectual property currently works in El Salvador – the country of Bitcoin – where the company has offices, before offering further insights into the value of Fold's intellectual property (IP).
Fold IP
Since Fold was early in development in the Bitcoin space, it currently contains a very valuable technology stack. Reeves shared that this is the case not only with Fold, but with many Bitcoin startups.
“We started this very early, as basically every Bitcoin startup out there is building a massive amount of intellectual property that doesn't exist anywhere else,” Reeves said.
What Fold has built is completely unique, he stressed.
“Nobody has built what Fold has where you can have a Bitcoin wallet that talks to an FDIC-insured bank account linked to Visa that can back into Bitcoin,” he explained.
He also believes that as larger institutions enter the space, they will benefit from what Fold has created as they create their own Bitcoin products and features.
“A lot of the value that Bitcoin companies are building now may look like today's consumer products, but they're actually entire infrastructure plays that will power and support products from the big banners when they want to jump into Bitcoin,” Reeves said.
“All of us, as founders of Bitcoin, look under the hood of what we've done and see, hey, this is going to be very valuable to a lot of people and a lot of partners,” he added.
The future of the fold
Fold will soon roll out new public features for its app. While I can't yet reveal what these features are (you'll hear about them soon enough), I can share with you what Fold is looking to motivate you to do, which, according to Reeves, is the following:
“Get rid of your bank that keeps stopping your payments for buying Bitcoin. Get rid of your bank that keeps you from getting loans because you are a Bitcoin company.
“There is no reason for Bitcoin users to use fiat banks that cancel their Bitcoin purchases saying they are risky payments,” Reeves added.
“Fold is creating a home that privileges people who own bitcoin. That doesn't really exist today.”
Besides giving Bitcoin fans a better traditional banking experience and a great place to stack rewards, Fold is also looking to the future – to Bitcoin L2s like Lightning, Liquid and beyond.
“The vision comes together when we say, ‘Hey, there's no door you can't use your bitcoin through. “There's no rail you can't use it on,” Reeves explained. “Fold needs to offer the principle of ‘I hold Bitcoin and I can seamlessly send value over traditional paper bars.’ I can send value over Lightning. I can send value over Liquid and all the other expanded definitions of other Bitcoin layers that can give new value to Bitcoin users.”
Download the Fold app here.