BTCSarah Friar, CFO of mobile payments firm Square, has filled in some of the detail on why the company has launched a bitcoin pilot scheme.
Revealed yesterday, Square's mobile payments product, Cash App, is now allowing a limited number of users to buy or sell bitcoin within their accounts.
Talking to CNBC, Friar explained:
"You're talking about it, it's out there, and so we want to do an experiment and say, OK, is this real? Do customers actually want to be able to do this?"
Friar noted that customers often feed back desired features in Square's products, and that some using Cash App to make payments have requested an "easy way to buy and sell bitcoin."
Arguing that the fastest way to get moving with new trends is to build innovations around them, Friar said, ultimately, risks have to be taken – citing the example of early days of internet as an example.
While future developments with bitcoin are uncertain, she added, "As an innovator, Square has to be there to let a customer do what they want to do."
If this is happening, then gradually we are getting to the point where the premonition that bitcoin will be banned by most countries will gradually fizzle away. Not too long, I read an article about EY trying to expand its blockchain research centre to other parts of the world by committing a multi-million dollars on developing tools that will be based on blockchain and by default have impact and credence to bitcoin.
These are the innovations to be glad about and news that are supporting the continued increase in the price of bitcoin because it then means confidence is increasing, EY committing such amount of resources means Deloitte will want to see an opportunity to develop their own programs without leaving out PWC and KPMG rather than only basing the price of bitcoin on moneybags and whales.
