Bridge's goal is to become the "American Express" of the cryptocurrency space, enabling users to make purchases globally and settle in their local currency through integration with businesses.

Authors: Zach Abeams & Sean Yu

Compiled by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Zach Abeams:

Summary:

Bridge (formerly known as Shift Pay) is developing an API to help businesses enable users to easily and cost-effectively use cryptocurrencies for payments across different currencies and blockchains. Cryptocurrency transactions can be complex, especially when the assets you hold do not match the assets needed for the transaction (for example, holding USD but needing ETH, or holding ETH but needing SOL to purchase an NFT). The payment process often requires users to perform many operations (resulting in a poor user experience), takes time (entry delays), and incurs high fees (taxes, gas fees). As new currencies, protocols, and use cases emerge, cryptocurrency transactions may become even more complicated.

Bridge aims to become the "American Express" of the cryptocurrency space, allowing users to make purchases globally (on any blockchain) and settle in their local currency through integration with businesses. Users can transact immediately using any crypto asset and pay with the assets they already have. For example: buy an NFT instantly with ETH and settle the transaction in USD; pay gas fees on a layer two network with MATIC and settle in ETH.

We are investing in the initial funding round for this project (specific amount undisclosed).

Key Assumptions of Bridge:

1. The founding team of Bridge is exceptional and has a clear mission, which will help them seize the enormous opportunity in crypto payments. Founders Zach Abrams and Sean Yu co-founded a payment company a decade ago and successfully sold it to Square. Since then, they have worked in product and engineering roles at several successful fintech companies, including Coinbase and Brex. They possess unique backgrounds with entrepreneurial experience from the ground up and executive roles at industry-leading companies. We believe they are one of the strongest teams in the field, and regardless of the specific ideas at the project's inception, we are willing to support them. Especially as they pursue the significant opportunity in the crypto payments space, this makes the project even more compelling.

2. Crypto payments represent a massive market. Currently, the primary use of cryptocurrencies is for investment. The application of payments has not developed as rapidly as many in the industry anticipated a decade ago. When I worked at Coinbase in 2013, we were excited about the efficiency of merchants accepting Bitcoin payments. We believed that cross-border B2B payments and remittances would become important use cases, and we invested a lot of time and energy into this. However, the market was not mature at that time, but I firmly believe that day will come, and today the timing for crypto payments to fully integrate into internet commerce is closer than ever.

3. Now is the best time for rapid development in crypto payments, and intermediaries can play a significant role in this process. Currently, the hot topic in crypto commerce is the buying and selling of NFTs. About 95% of NFT transactions are conducted using the native cryptocurrency of the chain they are on (for example, NFTs on Ethereum use ETH), without the need to pay intermediaries to facilitate transactions, as everything is done on-chain. We believe that the demand for intermediaries in crypto payments will increase in the future, although the specific use cases remain unclear.

Team (10/10):

Co-founder Zach Abrams sold his first payment startup, Evenly, to Square in 2013 (details here). While this deal was not huge, it demonstrated his innate entrepreneurial spirit by starting a business before entrepreneurship became mainstream. Since then, he has held leadership roles in product development.

Sean Yu

Zach Abrams has worked at several industry-leading growth companies, including Coinbase and Brex. He possesses excellent product awareness, works diligently, and as CEO, he will tirelessly seek suitable market opportunities for the company.

Co-founder Sean Yu worked with Zach at Evenly as co-founder and chief engineer. He later served as an engineer at companies like Coinbase and Brex, where he was praised for his strong execution, capable of both coding and recruiting high-level engineering talent.

Zach and Sean make an outstanding founding team. They have achieved significant accomplishments in execution, demonstrating world-class execution capabilities, while also eager to make a broader impact.

Product (8/10):

This is one of the few cases where we are investing when the product direction is not yet clear. We know the company will develop payment-related products, but we expect the products to iterate continuously. Initially, they are focusing on the application scenarios of NFTs and exploring how to support multi-chain and multi-currency payments with NFT markets. This direction may change over time.

Community (9/10):

Zach is an excellent community builder. He works hard, actively engages with users, and is full of energy. He has reached out to most of the founders of 1confirmation to understand their pain points in payments. Once the product direction is clear, I believe Zach will actively acquire customers and gain deep insights into their needs.

Token Mechanism (N/A):

This project is unlikely to introduce a token. The team may evolve into a traditional business, with future success potentially coming from going public or being acquired by a large company.

Key Risks:

• Timing: We firmly believe that crypto commerce will eventually thrive; the question is about timing. Currently, the demand for third-party intermediaries in crypto payments is not apparent. This situation may change with the proliferation of stablecoins or the emergence of other use cases, but when exactly that will happen remains uncertain.

Summary (Team + Product + Community + Token Mechanism: 9):

Overall, this is an excellent team dedicated to driving the globalization of crypto commerce. They have significant potential to achieve this goal, and we are excited to be part of this journey.

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