The final Plenary session at  ‘Unmoney: The future for alternative currencies’ covered all sorts of complex topics, e.g. the Blockchain global ledger, digital scarcity and being guaranteed that there won’t be double counting of your money. Chris Skinner, Jon Matonic, Executive Director, Bitcoin Foundation, and Jonas Borchgrevink, Found and CEO of Coinaa had a fascinating discussion. 

Global Bitcoin payments

But what made Bitcoin come live for me was when Jonas Borchgrevink, Found and CEO of Coinaa described how he uses freelancers all over the world to ensure that his site is updated 24/7 and how he pays them. 

At the end of each month he:

• works out the value of the work (at the pre-agreed USD rates) each one has performed
• calculates what this is worth at the current rate in Bitcoins
• pays each contributor by entering his BTC address and private key, the amount, and then approving the transfer to contributor’s address.

Local Bitcoin payments

This could be followed by the contributor in the UK using his Bitcoin deposit to buy theatre tickets from UK’s Theatre Tickets Direct, and, after the show, he goes to Starbucks and buys coffees and a snack with his Bitcoin at the new Square POS terminals that accept Bitcoin and Apple Pay, as well as MasterCard and Visa, etc. 

(OK, I made the last payment up, but the rest is here today and being used. And Starbucks will be installing such terminals shortly.)

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CTMfile take: One international transfer and two local payment without any bank involved. It will take a long time, but the growth path is plausible and practical. In emerging economies the growth could be exponential.