Bitcoin Magazine compiled this list to highlight the 21 companies and projects that we believe will make the most of Bitcoin in 2020. We admit that this grouping is far from perfect, but our team did its best to objectively curate the ones that made the biggest impact on the ecosystem BTC this year. Of course, this was a very difficult process and we decided to leave some projects that may have had a huge impact on Bitcoin in the past, but whose influence did not rise this year specifically to make the cut.
2020 may have been a remarkable year of collective effort for human beings on the planet earth, but it was also a historically productive year in the Bitcoin ecosystem. As the world continues to experience turmoil and oppression, it is clear that humanity will increasingly turn to the Bitcoin network. For that reason in particular, we are honored to highlight these 21 amazing projects and companies for the huge impact they have had on the Bitcoin community this year – and more, we rounded up the list with nine honorable mentions. The following is listed alphabetically, along with some basic information about what they bring to the world of Bitcoin and why we wanted to highlight them.
Bitcoin Magazine he couldn’t be more excited about the Bitcoin forward parade and we are thrilled to be part of such a vibrant community!
Bisq
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
This year, Bisq provided the most censorship-resistant ramp and anti-ramp for Bitcoin. Bisq is designed to be a last resort and has made great strides in 2020, including the addition of SegWit support.
Blue Wallet
Website a Twitter
Category: Wallet
Blue Wallet landed like crazy in 2020 and served as the most highly-regarded bitcoin iOS wallet on the market. It was also one of the most progressive mobile wallets in Bitcoin.
BTCPay Server
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
BTCPay’s status as an open source payment processor for sovereign businesses and individuals was more necessary than ever in 2020, when financial decomposition and censorship became commonplace.
Coinkite (Cold Card)
Website a Twitter
Category: Hardware
Coinkite was the first major hardware manufacturer to prove that Bitcoin’s only business model could be successful in increasing the security guarantees expected of a hardware wallet.
Folding
Website a Twitter
Category: Sats Back
Fold has revolutionized the use of sats as a universal rewards point, while preserving privacy and using a respectable business model that drives results for partners. Fold has consistently shipped great updates and features, culminating in a sats-back debit card launched in 2020.
Hodl Hodl
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
In 2020, Hodl Hodl maintained a continued focus on providing non-KYC and non-prison options in the middle of a landscape with increasing regulations and KYC requirements. This kind of consistency is much needed in the Bitcoin space.
The Human Rights Institute
Website a Twitter
Category: Non-profit
The Human Rights Institute (HRF) launched the first 501 (c) (3) Bitcoin development fund this year so that Bitcoiners and others can contribute to development in a tax-efficient manner and help build the ecosystem.
Lightning Labs
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
Lightning Labs 2020 spent building open tools to help support independent Lightning node operators to manage their goals more effectively, as with Lightning Pool.
MicroStrategy
Website a Twitter
Category: Not applicable
MicroStrategy made waves this year when it announced that it had adopted the Bitcoin standard for its corporate treasury, converting more than $ 450 million to BTC at an average price of $ 11,111. He has since made two other massive bitcoin purchases in announcing intentions on offering Bitcoin blockchain data products in the future.
myNode
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
This year, myNode provided an easy-to-use and accessible platform for Bitcoiners to use their own dedicated Bitcoin node, 24/7, and easily deploy it.
River Financial
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
River is the only bitcoin brokerage focused on serving high net worth individuals, which has built extremely impressive cutting edge bitcoin financial services offering with deep liquidity for large orders, native hardware wallet support, Lightning and average dollar cost there are Features (DCA).
Samourai wallet
Website a Twitter
Category: Wallet
Samourai provides a full featured, privacy-focused software pile for Bitcoiners, including full-node implementation, mobile wallet, best-in-class ZeroLink coordinated CoinJoin implementation, managing coins with labeling, stealth references and CoinJoin and PayJoin P2P – and a full suite of offerings that proved essential to Bitcoin in 2020.
Slush Pool
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
Slush Pit is the most innovative public mining mine in space and in 2020, began promoting the improvement of the Stratum protocol which should significantly improve the incentives between miners and mine operators.
Desktop Spectre
Website a Twitter
Category: Wallet
Specter Desktop emerged as the easiest way to use your own bitcoin wallets directly with Bitcoin Core in 2020. This enabled a much more private and sovereign approach than using hosted apps, while also providing set up and deployment much easier than previous Electrum-based alternatives.
Chat Sphinx
Website a Twitter
Category: P2P Messages
The first consumer-focused Lightning cap app, with an additional focus on giving broadcasters the ability to broadcast their shows to audiences while receiving sats per minute, offers an open and encrypted end-to-end standard , natively routed through the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
Square
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
Under the direction of CEO Jack Dorsey, Square became the first legitimate fintech company to begin diving into the Bitcoin space. In 2020, bitcoin has become a major profit driver for Square and has emerged as a leader in bitcoin sales and Bitcoin development. Square Crypto has become a major player in sponsoring Bitcoin development, with over 19 grants awarded to date.
Strike
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
With a user experience at the same level as Venmo or Cash Bank, Strike is an extremely user-friendly P2P payment app built on top of Bitcoin and the Lightning Network. Users can easily send dollars and withdraw bitcoin with Strike and helped showcase the advances Bitcoin has made as payment technology this year.
Suredbits
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
Suredbits has emerged as the Discreet Log Contract (DLC) technology leaders for Bitcoin in 2020. Throughout the year, the Suredbits team has pushed the envelope on Bitcoin-based oracle and Lightning enterprises.
Bitcoin Swan
Website a Twitter
Category: Exchange
In 2020, Swan Bitcoin established itself as a new and powerful player in the onramp and Bitcoin education space. Swan is a true onramp of Bitcoiners who stayed true to Bitcoin best practices all year long. His talented team of builders and educators will continue to be an evangelical force for “Why bitcoin?” and beyond.
Uncontrolled Capital
Website a Twitter
Category: Financial Services
Unchained Capital is arguably the first Bitcoin native financial services company. In 2020, it built on its great 2019 momentum by dispatching business infrastructure and features, along with completely rebuilding its systems to support Coldcard and a partially signed bitcoin transaction multisig (PSBT) standardization. His blog also emerged as one of the best educational resources available for Bitcoin.
ZK Snacks (Wasabi Wallet)
Website a Twitter
Category: Wallet
Wasabi Wallet has done a great deal of work to make better Bitcoin privacy more accessible in 2020. This includes easy CoinJoin, coin selection and labeling, native Bitcoin Core integration, native Tor integration and native hardware wallet support. Wasabi Wallet is also one of the best bitcoin desktop wallets out there. In 2020, the Wasabi team shipped a completely redesigned version of the wallet and CoinJoin architecture.
Honorable Ideas
BitGo
Website a Twitter
Category: Custody
Casa
Website a Twitter
Category: Custody
Donner Laboratory
Website a Twitter
Category: Gambling
Full Note
Website a Twitter
Category: Wallet
Glassnode
Website a Twitter
Category: Data
Rated
Website a Twitter
Category: Financial Services
Note
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
Raspiblitz
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
Umbrella
Website a Twitter
Category: Infrastructure
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