2013-07-01 CoinLab: new brands will be built around Bitcoin technology

[Birdy]

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-07/01/coinlab-peter-vessenes

Protocols are sticky, so it's unlikely Bitcoin will be going anywhere any time soon, says founder and CEO of Bitcoin exchange CoinLab. Quite the opposite, in fact, the technology is so simple and easy to use, it will give rise to countless new brands.

Speaking at Wired Money in Canary Wharf, Peter Vessenes regaled about the unstoppable power of the crytocurrency. Almost as a demonstration that the traditional financial sector en mass is not quite there yet, however, no one in the audience grabbed the Bitcoin Vessenes made available when he put the details of a brain wallet (very generally, a memorised Bitcoin) up on the screen behind him. Either the room was hesitant, or the majority did not know how to access that brain wallet and take the bitocoin, worth roughly £75. But that, Vessenes fervently believes, is about to all change. And that's down to the fact that it has the capacity to remove so many middle men -- from banks and trading companies -- potentially replacing them with just one person.[...]

[davout]

He has some points!

[superduh]

coinlab is an exchange??? did i miss something

[chufchuf]

why does this guy feel the need to buy mtgox's customers and not open an exchange and let them come, makes no sense at all unless the suit was the aim all along

[marcus_of_augustus]

"There is a company in the UK that functions like a retail bank but just with Bitcoin. In the last 18 months it has amassed 330,000 retail customers. It's run by one employee with servers. That demonstrates how easy it is to scale in this new environment."

The fact that it can scale like this, and that it is so quick and easy to use whilst allowing users to retain their anonymity ("whenever I swipe my card I think about all the information I'm giving away -- that really resonates with people"), is really just the icing on the cake as far as Vessenes sees it.

This is BS ... whilst being vociferous about calling for more regulation Vessenes is hypocritically trying to make out like those regulations will not incur, loss of anonymity costs, overheads and, yes, more and more useless bodies around filling out forms and compliance manifestos ... I really think he might lose his shirt in the whole sorry mess he is creating for himself. Sounds like he wants to have his cake, and the icing, and eat everything too.