As 2013 came to an end, many reflected on last year’s biggest tech news — and Bitcoin was a serious contender.But the main question remains: why are people interested in Bitcoin?This whole debate reappeared when Charlie Stross stated that “Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.” Paul Krugman then quoted his post, neither denying nor approving this thought.But Chris Dixon (and Fred Wilson in the comment section) reiterated their strong interest in Bitcoin while sharing that they are both Democrats.If major Bitcoin enthusiasts don’t have any political agenda in mind, then what is the future of Bitcoin?At its heart, Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency that doesn’t rely on any central bank.Bitcoins are just a chain of characters defined by algorithmic rules, and transactions are handled by the network of miners.

Yet, in a month’s time, the value of a bitcoin went from $200 to more than $1,000 on all the exchanges.In other words, it is as volatile as it can get.Right now, there are only around 12 million of bitcoins in circulation, and many Bitcoin holders are recent converts that buy and sell every day.So how could you think about using bitcoins to pay the rent?You could simply hold your bitcoins and expect to triple your wallet value in a couple of weeks instead.That’s why I believe Bitcoin isn’t the next world currency.Bitcoin’s true purpose is not what everyone originally expected — you won’t buy a pizza in bitcoins anytime soon.Moreover, Bitcoin won’t be able to remain an unregulated currency for long.So Bitcoin’s true purpose lies somewhere else.As Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment network, you don’t need any banking institution to make large transfers.Bitcoin could become the first meta-currency that sits on top of traditional currencies, the common language between USD and EUR.

That’s what Dixon finds interesting, Bitcoin is as much a money transfer protocol as a currency.And it has the potential of disrupting the traditional banking system.As I live in France and work for an American company, I thought I would be the perfect candidate for this particular use case.I tried to use Bitcoin to transfer a small amount of money between the U.S.At first, I purchased bitcoins using Coinbase and my U.S.bank account (a couple of dollars in fees).The process was very easy, but because I don’t meet the requirements to make instant purchases, I had to wait about a week before I could actually do anything with my bitcoins.bitcoin etf live streamCoinbase had to verify the transaction first.bitcoin etf live streamWhile I take Coinbase as an example here, there aren’t many trustworthy and easy-to-use services to make Bitcoin transactions yet — and all services have flaws.bitcoin asic pool

People ask me all the time how they could buy bitcoins, and I don’t have a simple answer.In that period of time, bitcoins went from about $850 a bitcoin to more than $1,000, then back to $700 — I only could sit back and enjoy the ride.Then, when I finally got my bitcoins, I transfered them to Bitstamp in a couple of hours (no fee) — it was flawless and a great example of the beauty of Bitcoin.Finally, I transfered my bitcoins to my French account ($1.24 fee to convert into EUR with a very good conversion rate).legit bitcoin cloud miningI had to wait a few days before getting my money because of the traditional banking system.bitcoin кошелек iosOverall, it was a painful experience, even more painful than using traditional foreign exchange services.bitcoin halving time

But more importantly, I don’t see how I could trust Bitcoin as a money transfer protocol with such a high volatility.Fees were much lower, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how much money you will get on your bank account in the end.A couple of weeks ago, Bitcoin’s value went from more than $1,100 to around $650 in a few hours, because of a new rule in China.You can’t use Bitcoin for serious amounts of money if there is a chance of losing 40 percent of your money overnight.ethereum mathAs long as Bitcoin remains a young and volatile currency, Bitcoin’s mechanisms will remain beautiful on paper.ethereum announcement may 19Using it for real world transactions would be crazy, and I think we are still a couple of years away from getting a stable Bitcoin that can be trusted.bitcoin recurring payments

Until then, using Bitcoin will remain a wild ride — it’s definitely fun, but don’t take Bitcoin seriously just yet.“I think we will know when bitcoin has reached prime time when it is transferring more value each day than Western Union or Money Gram…” – Roger Ver, November 2013 “With bitcoin, you’re adding a third currency,” Goss said.“You go from U.S.dollar to bitcoin, and then from bitcoin to whatever the local currency is.You’re adding an extra FX move right there alone.On top of that, small startups don’t have a big FX department, and they don’t have the big abilities that come with such a department … they’re generating more costs for themselves, not less.” “ZipZap uses a combination of traditional (Swift) bank payment rails and blockchain technologies to find the least expensive and most efficient transfer option…” “This technology is enabling us to conduct business a lot quicker, cheaper with lower error rates and lower vulnerability to cyber threats.

It is helping us eradicate the need for post transaction settlements which are cumbersome and expensive.” “One of the main lessons from this experiment is that the versions of distributed ledger currently available may not provide an overall net benefit when compared with existing centralized systems for interbank payments.Core wholesale payment systems function quite efficiently…” Underestimation by @SaveOnSend on #blockchain remittance volumes.Korea -Philippines is over $1M / mth on @OKLink alone excl.Sentbe — Jack C. Liu (@liujackc) April 9, 2017 Thanks, Jack!Please email us data with proof of monthly trends and we will be happy to verify and publish — SaveOnSend (@SaveOnSend) April 9, 2017 “Potentially, Africa’s huge unbanked population combined with the burdensome process of opening and operating a bank account should make Bitcoin an instant hit.However, its adoption has been irritatingly slow even though the basic infrastructure is not missing.