Previously referred to as Lightning Pay, Stacked often is the solely Bitcoin trade left standing after a collection of mergers and bankruptcies within the New Zealand crypto trade. Doubling down on their imaginative and prescient to make Bitcoin “helpful as cash,” they simply launched a self-custodied Lightning pockets.
Discovered at StackedBitcoin.com, the corporate has taken a unique path than bigger exchanges within the nation, which, in response to Simon, co-founder and CRO of Stacked, are going all-in on promoting custodial and paper bitcoin. Exchanges like Sharesies are constructed following the Robinhood mannequin, with no path to withdraw crypto to self-custodied wallets. Whereas EasyCrypto, a preferred swap trade that obtained consumer fiat and despatched crypto again to consumer wallets — much like the Bull Bitcoin mannequin — was not too long ago purchased out by SwyFTX and shut down, funneling its userbase to the father or mother custodial trade.
Stacked, a 4-person firm that’s seen important development within the nation in recent times, believes that is the unsuitable path for the native Bitcoin trade, and as such has launched a self-custodied Bitcoin and Lightning pockets that enhances their very own swap trade providing. Customers ship fiat to Stacked and obtain Bitcoin into their self-custodied pockets of alternative. They will additionally pay utility payments and even their lease with Bitcoin by means of Stacked, who settle out the fiat recipients by way of New Zealand’s progressive Open Banking funds framework.
The Stacked pockets, which includes a glossy and trendy design, makes use of Breez and Spark SDKs within the again finish to supply customers a secure and easy-to-use Bitcoin expertise, with full Lightning Community integration. The app lets customers buy Bitcoin manually and on a schedule by way of Autostack a DCA fashion set it and neglect it buy characteristic. Customers may also handle contacts within the app to pay with bitcoin on their finish and ship fiat to recipients. The nation has no capital features tax; as a substitute, Bitcoin earnings are taxed as earnings, leading to what could also be a way more favorable regulatory setting for hyper Bitcoinization.
Stacked has been focusing its efforts to make Bitcoin helpful as cash within the Bitcoin Basin, a rising round economic system in Queenstown, New Zealand, which boasts round Bitcoin-accepting retailers thus far. The corporate has created a devoted web site for the group and hosts common occasions within the space, encouraging the native bitcoin economic system.
Within the 2025 monetary 12 months, 227,000 New Zealanders have been recognized as distinctive cryptoasset customers partaking in round 7 million transactions. Native cryptocurrency trade volumes reached roughly NZ$7.8 billion. Stacked tasks the native digital asset market will to generate income exceeding US$200 million in 2026. Almost 50% of New Zealanders are present or potential Bitcoin and digital asset buyers, in response to 2024 analysis by Protocol Idea.
