Time to stop the focus on buying coffees and start focusing on remittance!

[CIYAM]

I think that the BitPay announcement (reducing their staff by a large percentage) is perhaps proof that Bitcoin is not being used by large numbers of people to buy things.

It isn't surprising to me (as I've been pointing out for weeks before this happened) as pretty much no-one is being paid their salary in BTC and the hassle (and fees) to purchase BTC does not make it attractive to then want to go and spend it for usually no discount (as most people allowing BTC payments are using BitPay or the like and do not offer a cheaper selling price - it's just a different payment option).

Sure we have maybe hundreds of ad-sig posters on this forum that earn enough to pay for 1 coffee per month but a new world economy that hardly makes (I really can't see Starbucks franchises being keen to train their staff for a few coffees they might be able to sell per month for BTC).

Until people are being paid in BTC they are simply not going to be using it to buy things (apart from the "early investors" most of which have already bought whatever toys they wanted to already).

What I'd like to see the focus being on is remittance (the main reason why I actually started using Bitcoin back in 2011). Compared to other methods Bitcoin should "kick ass" in this area but unfortunately it has made virtually no impact in a market that is worth billions in profits per year.

[Guido]

agree with all you say

I am pretty staggered the amount of cash being pumped into btc startups that have virtually zero results

seems a lot of people giving themselves fancy titles, like president, vp, coo all this crap and are overseeing bitcoin startups that effectively do nothing but sizzle through tons of cash

another problem is a lot of the people involved have tons of cash in the first instance, lets use the winklevii as examples or the huge queues of corporate investors. they are not HUNGRY. most have priveliged backgrounds

I would love to see some of the very talented people on this very forum take on the mantle. but rather than anything get rich quick or illegal focus on something like remittance
it is a very hard market to get into and will require some infrastructure

have a look at startchat, based for bitcoin and startcoin. so secure messaging AND direct transfer of funds using both cryptos
I think will be huge with enough eyeballs. could go viral
https://twitter.com/start_chat

[CIYAM]

I have actually some inside knowledge of some new remittance businesses based around the technology (although unfortunately they are not keen to use Bitcoin itself - it seems that Ripple is actually making more inroads now).

As I think this really is the ideal area for Bitcoin I would be willing to offer my help to any serious business wanting to work on getting this happening.

[CIYAM]

There is a huge market for this as Western Union is taking a huge cut out of the funds sent right now by migrant workers.

Yes - they take an *obscene* amount of fees from migrant workers (often as high as 30-50% when you are talking small value transfers).

[RodeoX]

Since the next century will be one of global mass migration I think the remittance market is going to be huge also. However I think BitPay is scaling back to recover the financial loss they suffered from a recent large theft.

[CIYAM]

Since the next century will be one of global mass migration I think the remittance market is going to be huge also. However I think BitPay is scaling back to recover the financial loss they suffered from a recent large theft.

They had over 30M in VC funding (from what I had read) so if the loss of 2M causes them to sack nearly everyone then what happened to the other 28M?

If "business was booming" then I very much doubt they would have needed to sack so many employees (and also it wasn't that recent - it happened last year from what I read).

[Fraxinus]

We are seeing a large number of startups with barely any results and various names and it seems that not a lot of people are using bitcoin for buying stuff.When more people adopt bitcoin and use it as a real currency it will for sure mean we are going to see much higher percentage of money coming into the startups.

[Guido]

There is a huge market for this as Western Union is taking a huge cut out of the funds sent right now by migrant workers.

Yes - they take an *obscene* amount of fees from migrant workers (often as high as 30-50% when you are talking small value transfers).

all these 'banks' and their ponzi schemes make it impossible to start a new bank according their regulations
sue you need to be legal, have good record etc but even someone like Richard Branson couldn't open one in UK
he had to buy an existing failed one

people like WU have a monopoly really, on remittances, for now
but they have been so greedy

any new remittance service for bitcoin or any other crypto would have the initial age old problems.
the app is the easy bit, having the way to buy the crypto and sell it for fiat, which most migrants and those they send to , family, is the tricky bit
still having to use banks, and many are unbanked

so, with 'law enforcement' etc. using entrapment etc. on local bitcoins it is scaring people off using
and really, local bitcoins is bigger in places like US

the places where it's really needed, eastern europe, africa etc doesn't really have a footprint

I think for this to get momentum, it will rely on street traders. the currency changers that are found everywhere you go where they are most trustworthy and cheaper than the banks. ever travel to Ukraine, Myanmar, Thailand, wherever

so if they have apps are are happy to cash out bitcoins when someone sending to them stood next to them this is a way
it's down to whether this is how things move forward

otherwise any app that wants to be a remittance service would need to have some office in these countries, lots of expense, jump through all the leagl hurdles, plus be happy to hold the crypto if price slumps after trading, again, they can use the crypto they hold to trade

[Denker]

I think that the BitPay announcement (reducing their staff by a large percentage) is perhaps proof that Bitcoin is not being used by large numbers of people to buy things.

It isn't surprising to me (as I've been pointing out for weeks before this happened) as pretty much no-one is being paid their salary in BTC and the hassle (and fees) to purchase BTC does not make it attractive to then want to go and spend it for usually no discount (as most people allowing BTC payments are using BitPay or the like and do not offer a cheaper selling price - it's just a different payment option).

Sure we have maybe hundreds of ad-sig posters on this forum that earn enough to pay for 1 coffee per month but a new world economy that hardly makes (I really can't see Starbucks franchises being keen to train their staff for a few coffees they might be able to sell per month for BTC).

Until people are being paid in BTC they are simply not going to be using it to buy things (apart from the "early investors" most of which have already bought whatever toys they wanted to already).

What I'd like to see the focus being on is remittance (the main reason why I actually started using Bitcoin back in 2011). Compared to other methods Bitcoin should "kick ass" in this area but unfortunately it has made virtually no impact in a market that is worth billions in profits per year.

Agree that should be definitely the main market to focus on.That is a market of more than $500bn each year. Bitcoin owning a nice piece of that cake would be awesome. But what is hindering us?
I mean we do have some services out there. But it all seems to take way more time and acceptance it seems.

And just to let you know... sig campaigns let you buy several more cup of coffees and not just one per month.

[CIYAM]

And just to let you know... sig campaigns let you buy several more cup of coffees and not just one per month.

Well - I don't think your coffee purchasing is going to save BitPay is it?

[thejaytiesto]

Well it seems some people want to turn Bitcoin into an elitist asset that only rich people would use anyway. I think thats a guaranteed failure. We NEED to both take care of small transactions and huge transactions too. Cash going away is a reality in the following years and we need a solid system to counteract the e-fiat closed source crypto that the gov will drop on us.

[Guido]

There is a huge market for this as Western Union is taking a huge cut out of the funds sent right now by migrant workers.

Yes - they take an *obscene* amount of fees from migrant workers (often as high as 30-50% when you are talking small value transfers).

all these 'banks' and their ponzi schemes make it impossible to start a new bank according their regulations
sue you need to be legal, have good record etc but even someone like Richard Branson couldn't open one in UK
he had to buy an existing failed one

people like WU have a monopoly really, on remittances, for now
but they have been so greedy

any new remittance service for bitcoin or any other crypto would have the initial age old problems.
the app is the easy bit, having the way to buy the crypto and sell it for fiat, which most migrants and those they send to , family, is the tricky bit
still having to use banks, and many are unbanked

so, with 'law enforcement' etc. using entrapment etc. on local bitcoins it is scaring people off using
and really, local bitcoins is bigger in places like US

the places where it's really needed, eastern europe, africa etc doesn't really have a footprint

I think for this to get momentum, it will rely on street traders. the currency changers that are found everywhere you go where they are most trustworthy and cheaper than the banks. ever travel to Ukraine, Myanmar, Thailand, wherever

so if they have apps are are happy to cash out bitcoins when someone sending to them stood next to them this is a way
it's down to whether this is how things move forward

otherwise any app that wants to be a remittance service would need to have some office in these countries, lots of expense, jump through all the leagl hurdles, plus be happy to hold the crypto if price slumps after trading, again, they can use the crypto they hold to trade

Now that I think about it this could be easy for a bank to do, I don't know about Richard Branson's view on remittance or the bank he owns but I do know he is a fan of bitcoin and accepted it for Virgin Galactic tickets. It seems that a bank could easily have exchanges in many of these poor countries accept Bitcoin for Fiat and run it through their current main bank and sell the Bitcoin as a large European exchange making another fee off that. I know that we don't want banks involved but this seems like it would be the easiest foothold for someone to have mass local exchanges in third world countries, now if only they wouldn't do it at a large fee.

This is not an actually plan just a brainstorming idea with the idea a bank wouldn't be a greedy evil monster.

a bank could of course. but crypto usurps their business model. all that free cash and qe and charging exhorbitant interest rates on loans, cc on their free money
think about it. WU would be out of business if banks had took on their model, albeit they are hand in hand in some format
add to that banks are wholesale closing branches, globally
plus most of the people needing it are unbanked! so not much use. OR are travellers, students needing emergency money pronto

add to that banks don't like taking gambles. holding crypto they could lose on swings. maybe when they have fully rigged markets then they would partake

crypto is still very much smallfry to them currently
it does however really offer a solution to refugees, migrants sending money home, criminals. ordinary people that want to change system and so on

but, yes, to op, THIS is biggest area that needs addressing. not stock linked exchanges, floats etcetera

[RodeoX]

Since the next century will be one of global mass migration I think the remittance market is going to be huge also. However I think BitPay is scaling back to recover the financial loss they suffered from a recent large theft.

They had over 30M in VC funding (from what I had read) so if the loss of 2M causes them to sack nearly everyone then what happened to the other 28M?

If "business was booming" then I very much doubt they would have needed to sack so many employees (and also it wasn't that recent - it happened last year from what I read).

But if I were funding this I would certainly not allow the money to be used that way. I would say that the managers have to come up with 2M$. My investment is not to cover losses, it's to facilitate greater profits. A $2 million dollar hole is a radical change to the plan and needs to be fixed before going forward.
I have no specific knowledge of where BitPay is at financially, so I'm just guessing.

[CIYAM]

I have no specific knowledge of where BitPay is at financially, so I'm just guessing.

Well - with hardly any employees now clearly they aren't expecting a lot of business are they?

(assuming that they can continue with only 10% or so of the staff shows that there can't be much business going on)

[bit22gen]

In Thailand the infrastructure is ready for bitcoin remittances, here for example:

https://bitcoin.co.th/
https://coins.co.th/

What is missing is information and knowledge about the possibility to use bitcoin.

[PolarPoint]

I think the remittance market need more local exchanges to function. There isn't enough solid exchanges in every country to facilitate a bitcoin remittance network. Government regulations on bitcoin exchanges is a tall hurdle to tackle. Startups cannot "focus on remittance" if local governments are against bitcoin.

[adamstgBit]

I think the remittance market need more local exchanges to function. There isn't enough solid exchanges in every country to facilitate a bitcoin remittance network. Government regulations on bitcoin exchanges is a tall hurdle to tackle. Startups cannot "focus on remittance" if local governments are against bitcoin.

if you could spend your bitcoins on "coffee" anywhere, you wouldn't need exchanges or ATM's or any other way to get $$ for BTC.

[brg444]

Since the next century will be one of global mass migration I think the remittance market is going to be huge also. However I think BitPay is scaling back to recover the financial loss they suffered from a recent large theft.

They had over 30M in VC funding (from what I had read) so if the loss of 2M causes them to sack nearly everyone then what happened to the other 28M?

If "business was booming" then I very much doubt they would have needed to sack so many employees (and also it wasn't that recent - it happened last year from what I read).

But if I were funding this I would certainly not allow the money to be used that way. I would say that the managers have to come up with 2M$. My investment is not to cover losses, it's to facilitate greater profits. A $2 million dollar hole is a radical change to the plan and needs to be fixed before going forward.
I have no specific knowledge of where BitPay is at financially, so I'm just guessing.

The hole has been there since late 2014. BitPay has been laying off progressively more employees all year, it's obvious their current woes are not restricted to that theft.

[gentlemand]

I think all these remittance startups might get a rude awakening when they realise the forest of regulation in every different country that has to be navigated to get properly established.

WU may be a dinosaur but they know their shit inside out.

[BitcoinAddicts]

Maybe we should focus on where Bitcoin succeeds: Dark Web.
http://www.coindesk.com/dark-web-markets-processed-more-bitcoin-than-bitpay-in-2014/
Of course people buy illegal stuffs on Dark Web but they buy and spend BTC!