Bitcoin’s decentralized platform of distributed trust continues to gain the attention of astute observers of centralized payment systems. One benefit bitcoin provides in today’s global economy is being a global currency. Bret Swanson, writing in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, claims bitcoin can alleviate the problems international travelers increasingly encounter when making payments in foreign countries.
Swanson, president of Entropy Economics, a technology economic research firm, and Entropy Capital, a venture capital firm, relates the difficulty he recently encountered when his teenage daughter needed to pay for things during a trip to France. A few days before the trip, he loaded prepaid Visa and American Express cards, only to realize in reading the fine print that they may not work in all countries. Since he had waited until a few days before the trip, there wasn’t enough time to get a bank-issued debit card. Fortunately, he was able to load money onto a friend’s debit card for his daughter to use. But one week after she began using it, an ATM in Paris “ate” the debit card.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/bitcoin-solution-global-travelers-payment-systems-become-centralized/
