The Winklevoss twins recently made an appearance at SXSW Interactive 2016, where the early Bitcoin adopters discussed how the industry has changed and matured over the past three to four years. The keys points made by the Winklevi in terms of Bitcoin’s maturation had to do with clearer regulation, better protections for consumers and the increased availability of professional-grade exchanges.
When asked about how Bitcoin has grown as a technology and an industry over the past few years, Cameron Winklevoss said, “I think Bitcoin still does what it has done since day one. I think probably the biggest change is really the types of people building inside the system today.”
Bitcoin Companies Are Now Protecting ConsumersOne of the major signs of maturation in the Bitcoin industry has been the creation of regulated exchanges. During his appearance at SXSW Interactive 2016, Cameron Winklevoss, who co-founded the Bitcoin exchange Gemini with his twin brother, Tyler, stated: “With Gemini, we’re a regulated trust company in the state of New York; we’re regulated under banking law, so we operate and have the same controls and procedures that you would expect of any financial institution (like your bank). That didn’t exist in the early days of Bitcoin. Quite frankly, it didn’t exist a year ago . . . It was a Wild West in the early days.”
The Winklevoss Twins are of the belief that the existence of regulated exchanges will calm some of the fears institutional investors have when it comes to speculation on the Bitcoin price.
Cameron Winklevoss noted: “You’re seeing a lot of the same kind of consumer protections in things that you see in other financial areas that are regulated coming to Bitcoin. What that enables is getting people comfortable buying and selling Bitcoin, especially from both the individuals to the institutions.”
Whether the existence of Gemini has led to increased activity from institutional players is debatable. As of March 12th, Gemini was the 13th largest Bitcoin exchange based on 24-hour volume (according to Bitcoinity.org). Having said that, there are other Bitcoin exchanges aimed at institutional investors in the United States such as Coinbase Exchange and itBit.
The Professionals Have Arrived in the Bitcoin SpaceBuilding off of Cameron’s previous comments, Tyler Winklevoss added that the people building companies in the Bitcoin industry today are much more professional than the early adopters of the technology. He noted:
“A lot of the professionals just weren’t in the space [in the early days]. The best entrepreneurs were building companies outside of Bitcoin, and I think a lot of times early adoptions are not the mature actors. So it was kind of like kids in a garage, for lack of a better metaphor.”
The most obvious example of the “kids in a garage” Tyler was referring to would have to be Mt. Gox, which filed for bankruptcy in early 2014 after losing hundreds of thousands of their customers’ bitcoins.
Tyler Winklevoss added that he and his brother are taking a more legitimate approach to building a Bitcoin exchange: “We, entrepreneurs obviously building a company, have kind of the garage mentality, but we’re taking a more legitimate approach to it because we’re dealing with money. We’re not dealing with people’s pictures or even getting them from point A to point B, and if you lose somebody’s money, it’s a really bad thing. It’s very different from losing your text message or your picture. It really hurts your welfare.”
Although it’s easy for any kid to build his own Android or iOS app, things can be problematic when a single programmer, who may not be following the best security practices, is essentially controlling millions of dollars worth of other people’s money (as seen in the case of Mt. Gox.)
Building a Bridge to the Legacy Financial SystemOne of the key points that the Winklevoss Twins have routinely made in regard to their own endeavours in the Bitcoin industry is that they’d like to build a bridge between digital currencies and the legacy financial system. Tyler Winklevoss made this point again at SXSW Interactive 2016. He stated: “Let’s build that bridge to the legacy world. Let’s not become it, but let’s take the safe parts about it and take the new innovation and marry the two.”
The main point the Winklevoss Twins made during their recent interview at SXSW is that it’s now much easier and safer for anyone to gain exposure to the Bitcoin price as a speculation thanks to platforms such as Gemini. Near the end of their chat with interviewer John Biggs, Tyler Winklevoss stated: “We’re regulated by the same people who probably regulate your bank, and I think that says a lot.”
ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email provider, announced that the service is leaving beta and will be allowing open registrations. ProtonMail is also launching its free iOS and Android mobile applications globally in the Apple App store and Google Play store.
ProtonMail features end-to-end encryption, which makes it practically impossible for governments, or even ProtonMail itself, to gain access to user messages, ensuring the highest level of security and privacy. The service encrypts and decrypts all data on-the-fly on the client side, which means that emails between ProtonMail users are never stored as plaintext, and therefore the government can’t force their release.
“Strong encryption and privacy are a social and economic necessity. Not only does this technology protect activists and dissidents, it is also key to securing the world’s digital infrastructure,” says ProtonMail co-founder Andy Yen. “This is why, all things considered, strong encryption is absolutely necessary for the greater good.”
The development of ProtonMail started in 2014 at CERN ‒ just like the development of the Web itself ‒ in response to growing concerns about governments spying on peaceful citizens’ email.
“I am very concerned about the privacy issue, and I was wondering what I could do about it,” Yen posted to a CERN Facebook group. ProtonMail raised its first $550,000 with crowdfunding, followed by a $2 million seed round from Charles River Ventures and Fongit.
Today, ProtonMail is one of the fastest-growing companies in Switzerland with three offices globally, and was ranked last year by Business Insider as the hottest startup in Switzerland.
The decision to open up ProtonMail is motivated by an increasing trend toward more and more surveillance around the world and growing efforts to undermine online privacy.
“We understand that governments have concerns when it comes to terrorism and encryption, but undermining our collective security by weakening cryptography is the wrong approach,” notes the announcement.
“The best way to ensure that encryption and privacy rights are not encroached upon is to get the tools into the hands of the public as soon as possible and widely distributing them,” added Yen. “This way, we put the choice in the hands of the consumer, and not government regulators. The past decade has been marked by a massive erosion of privacy and we’re working to reverse this trend. Encrypted communications is the future and ProtonMail is committed to making online privacy a reality again for all Internet users.”
Anyone can open a ProtonMail account without releasing personal information. Interestingly, the sign-up procedure ‒ like ProtonMail itself ‒ works well over Tor.
“Creating your free secure email account takes less than 2 minutes in most cases,” notes the ProtonMail signup page. The free service includes 500 megabytes of storage, and paid services have been launched recently. The cheapest premium plan, at $5 per month ($4 per month if paid annually), includes 5 gigabytes of storage and a custom domain. Current payment options are credit cards, PayPal and Bitcoin.
The Bitcoin payment option complements the anonymity of the signup process and the possibility to sign up and use ProtonMail over Tor. Taken together, these features mean that anonymous users can have premium ProtonMail accounts.
ProtonMail is a Swiss company with servers located in secure data centers in Switzerland, and is protected by privacy-friendly Swiss laws. In 2015, Bitcoin company Xapo relocated its corporate headquarters to Zurich to take advantage of the same privacy-friendly laws. Xapo’s primary deep cold storage vault was already located in Switzerland.
This is one of many parallels between ProtonMail and Bitcoin. ProtonMail wants to put privacy back into the Internet, which is increasingly controlled by governments and corporations as shown by the current dispute between Apple and the FBI over encrypted communications.
Bitcoin, which in theory permits private payments on the Internet, is also increasingly controlled by governments and corporations in ways that can void privacy. However, there are initiatives such as Zcash that promise to put private payments back into the Internet.
"ProtonMail and Bitcoin actually have a long history together,” Yen told Bitcoin Magazine. “Back in 2014 when PayPal instituted a payment block against us, we relied on BTC donations to keep the service running."
https://bitcoininthenews.com/?q=The-Winklevoss-Twins-on-Bitcoin-Industry-Growth-Lets-Build-That-Bridge-to-the-Legacy-World
