The analogy some people make by comparing Bitcoin with payment systems like PayPal is not correct, Purse.io CEO, Andrew Lee said in an interview on Bitcoin Podcast.
Bitcoin, he said, is the infrastructure and a better comparison would be the ACH (Automated Clearing House) which is an electronic network for financial transactions in the United States. Though an ancient system, it is a core infrastructure which hasn’t really changed in recent years.
Lee added that Bitcoin is a fundamental change as it doesn’t rely on any of the old systems and there are several things to do with Bitcoin that aren’t available on the digital payment system.
“Bitcoin has a lot of functionalities, a lot of things that people haven’t even imagined yet. It’s very early days. But a lot of these use cases, a lot of these different ideas that people have whether it is smart contract, you name it, it only works when we get to a certain size as a network. Users have to work with Bitcoin, transact with Bitcoin, and things like that. The more people use them the stronger the network gets. It really opens up the door to other use cases that weren’t possible with a smaller network.”
“What I found missing in the ecosystem were use cases. Use cases are proof to provide better value than existing solutions. With use cases, we got regular people, mainstream people on board… we started this company with the vision of providing consumer incentives, people with Bitcoins to transact with Bitcoin and two years later, today, we’ve transacted close to $10 million which means people with Bitcoin saved close to $2 million by using Bitcoin compared to to shopping on Amazon.”
Lee sees Bitcoin as the main cryptocurrency in the future and other alt coins would be for experimental purposes.
“...As I’d watched the space and kind of learn more of the developments that are happening in Bitcoin, I tend to think that Bitcoin is going to be the main cryptocurrency. I could be completely wrong. As of now, that’s kind of how I see the space today.”
Purse.io
The easiest way to use Purse.io is through a product called Instant which basically follows a easy shopping experience in Bitcoin that allows easy checkout.
A unique feature of the site is that every account has a wallet which allows users to deduct from the balance if they want to have a one-click shopping experience. No QR code, no copypasting and no need to wait for a confirmation to buy everything Amazon has and more on Purse.io and with a 5% cheaper incentive than anything on Amazon.
Purse.io also allows users to take gift cards and turn them to Bitcoins such as the Amazon’s payment for Mechanical Turk tasks. Users can transfer the Amazon credit to Bitcoin which could later be converted to local currencies.