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Not in Your Grandma's Wallet: Bitcoin Redefining Money
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Will Bitcoin replace paper money? During an interview on the FOX Business Network's Mornings With Maria ,Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert, who's considered the most active investor in Bitcoin companies, said: "[Bitcoin] it's going to change the way that people send money, spend money -- even think about money. It's kind of redefining what is money."
As an investor of companies in over 20 countries, he sees the most Bitcoin action in places where people use mobile devices for transactions.
"We are seeing dramatic adoption in places like Kenya, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa -- places where people have mobile devices, but they don't have bank accounts," he said.
He also discussed how regulation is impacting the digital currency.
"[Regulators] are certainly paying attention... I used to think that regulation was Bitcoin's biggest threat -- I actually think it's the biggest opportunity now... Running a bank, operating a bank -- you cannot be innovative. You can't think outside the box. You can't do anything creative. Whereas you have hundreds of thousands of startups around the world that are looking to, again, kind of disintermediate... It is really going to eat banks alive."
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Bitcoin is currently enjoying what politicos call a boomlet - a small bump that, while perhaps not impressive on a historical scale, is certainly notable. For bitcoin at the moment, this means a price spike that has put the cryptocurrency into its highest territory in a year.
That, combined with a small rise in global interest and what seems to be the highest transaction volume in history puts bitcoin in an interesting position. While it was originally assumed by many that bitcoin was doomed, or at least something that would never transcend niche status, those worries have certainly fallen short.
At the same time, bitcoin is only growing so quickly. Its transaction volume, an imperfect but useful metric, has been relatively flat recently, even around the time of the price fluctuations.
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Bitcoin's Winning Shoppers in Taiwan With This Retail Giant's Help
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Convenience store chain FamilyMart is now accepting bitcoin at its nearly 3,000 locations in Taiwan after striking a deal in October with local wallet provider BitoEX.
Since the news, FamilyMart has been allowing customers to use bitcoin, through a BitoEX wallet, to buy cash coupons accepted at its stores. The coupons are dispensed by its FamiPort terminals, which are a common payment channel used for everything from paying parking ticket fines or utility bills to buying train or movie tickets.
The move is aimed at visitors to Taiwan and a growing domestic user base, FamilyMart's public relations manager Chen Chia-Chi told the Taiwanese news agency United Daily News.
According to BitoEX, more than 500 transactions have already been made at FamilyMart stores since the feature was launched on 24th October. The firm also claims that it now has 40,000 web wallet users and a 30% annual growth rate.
"There are more and more users of our bitcoin wallet now, but the market in Taiwan is still small, and it's still growing," said Rica Chiang, deputy general manager at BitoEX.
This isn't the startup's first deal with FamilyMart. Last October it launched a bitcoin-buying service with the convenience store chain, allowing customers to purchase the digital currency over the counter.
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Here's Why the Value of Bitcoin Could Skyrocket in 2016
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Bitcoin, the dominant digital currency that's making its way onto the board room agendas of Fortune 500 companies and into the portfolios of average investors, is poised to have a big 2016.
Since emerging as a niche trading instrument in 2009, bitcoin has garnered significant media attention (more often than not, negative attention). While weathering a barrage of bad headlines, the bitcoin ecosystem has grown, attracting more than $1 billion in venture-capital funding over the last few years, supporting some entrepreneurs to build companies, services and capabilities that utilize bitcoin and the blockchain technology on which it's built, and may transform the financial services landscape forever -- and for better.
In contrast to fiat currency (like the U.S. dollar), bitcoin has no central authority, has a finite and known cap on its supply, and allows for near instantaneous value transfer. Against a backdrop of currency wars and manipulation, volatility in equity markets, and interest rate uncertainty, investors need diversification in their portfolios, and bitcoin may be the new asset that provides them with just that.
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