I had a first hand experience this weekend as to why the world of money is ripe for disruptive innovation. It involves transmitting money between multiple parties under a constricted timeframe, in an outdated banking system, between people in different geographical locations. It’s a prime example of why the world will embrace bitcoin.
At a high level, here is the situation. Person A owes Person B $200 and due a unique set of circumstances Person C (me) is charged with sending the $200 to Person A through an intermediary we both know…let’s call that party Person D. Obviously the most efficient way to execute the repayment would be for A to pay B directly, but as we all know stuff happens and things change in this beautiful thing called life.
So here I am, needing to send money to D. Knowing this person I ask the shot in the dark question – “Do you know what bitcoin is?”. Not surprisingly D did not know enough about bitcoin or trust it to use it as a payment medium to B. Unphased I log on to my banking website and select the money transmission service my banks utilizes to send the cash….and what do I find?
- There is a fee
- It will take several days
- Personal information (name, email address, & phone number) is required
- Domestic transactions only (didn’t matter in this case, but still annoying)
- Virtually no fees
- Instant transactions
- No personal information required
- Borderless value transmission
Little by little the innovative change will sweep the populace due situations just like the one I described above. Now if only I didn’t have to wait to be paid back for 3 days due to PayPal delays…