lightning-network
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Bitcoin’s Fast Lane Is Getting a Finance Department
Voltage began by putting Lightning nodes in the cloud. Now it is selling something more ambitious: instant payment rails that engineers can call by API and finance teams can settle in dollars.
OpenNode
OpenNode is a Bitcoin payment processor and infrastructure provider that lets businesses accept Bitcoin and send payouts globally, settling instantly over the Lightning Network with automatic conversion to local currencies. Founded in 2018 and headquartered in Los Angeles, the company powers checkout, payouts, in-person payments and a developer API for merchants ranging from McDonald's El Salvador to Substack, charging a flat 1% fee with built-in chargeback protection.
Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox is the CEO of OpenNode, a Bitcoin payments infrastructure company that lets businesses in 126 countries accept Bitcoin and send payouts over the Lightning Network with a few lines of code. A Dartmouth graduate who began his career in investment banking at Jefferies and later founded NGU Ventures, Fox took the helm of OpenNode in October 2022, months after the company closed a $20M Series A at a $220M valuation backed by Twitter, Tim Draper, Kingsway, and a Fidelity-affiliated fund.
Alexander Leishman
Alexander Leishman is the Founder, CEO, and CTO of River, a Bitcoin-only financial institution built to provide brokerage, custody, and mining services to individuals and institutions. With a background spanning aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, computer science at Stanford, and security engineering at Airbnb, Leishman co-founded River in 2019 after stints at MaiCoin, Deloitte, and Polychain Capital. River has raised over $17.7 million in venture funding and became the first Bitcoin-only exchange to publicly release its financial statements in April 2025. Leishman also serves on the board of Brink, a Bitcoin research and development nonprofit.
River
River is a San Francisco-based, bitcoin-only financial services company offering brokerage, custody, mining, and Lightning Network infrastructure. Founded in 2019 by Alex Leishman and Andrew Benson, River serves individuals and businesses who want to buy, hold, earn yield on, and transact with bitcoin from a US-regulated, transparent, full-reserve institution.