Permissionless money.
That was the goal of Paypal when it first came on the scene.
However, with fees of roughly 3% for U.S. based users and fees sometimes reaching north of 5% for international transactions, it is clear that they have failed in this regard.
You can get an estimate of the expected fees here:
http://ppfeecalc.com/
This is not even taking into account the 3-5 Business Day transfer time most customers experience.
This is why Bitcoin, Steem, and many others have become so prevalent and have so much potential.
For comparison sake, as I type, I could (theoretically) send $100,000,000 USD worth of Bitcoin to anywhere in the world for likely less than a couple dollars.
And it would arrive in likely less than 20 minutes...
With Steem, I could do it even cheaper and ever faster.
As you can see there is really no comparison between Bitcoin/Steem and Paypal.
Bitcoin/Steem are what Paypal had hopes of becoming.
The reason I bring this up today is because the market cap of Bitcoin has just surpassed the market cap of publicly traded Paypal.
Bitcoin currently sits around a $74 billion dollar market cap.
Paypal is right around a $72 billion dollar market cap.
Bitcoin's market cap surpassing that of Paypal over the past couple days reflects its growing role as the best way to move money globally.
Although, if Bitcoin doesn't vastly improve it's technology from current levels it could some day see Steem (or something like it) taking it's current strangle hold on the industry.
Either way...
Sorry Paypal, but your days are numbered.
You should have bought Coinbase when you had the chance instead of just striking a small partnership with them.
Stay informed my friends!
Sources:
http://ppfeecalc.com/
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/bitcoins-market-value-tops-that-of-netflix.html
Image Sources:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a44782/donald-trump-the-wall/
https://www.coinbase.com/dashboard
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/bitcoins-market-value-tops-that-of-netflix.html
