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Bitpagos INC – Setting The Era Of Revolutionizing Financial Solution of Bitcoin In Latin America

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The year of 2009, it was the first time when Blockchain technology emerged with a cryptocurrency called Bitcoin. The world witnessed the strength of it. In fact, many saw the destiny of financial sectors in cryptocurrency. However, when Bitcoin boomed in Argentina it got more exposure. Because it was the years when the country was midmost of one more financial crisis.

At that time, many Bitcoin-based start-ups were rises all over the world, especially in Latin America. Perhaps, only a couple of start-ups could stand in the business. BitPagos Inc. is one of such a milestone of blockchain-based company, which is founded in 2013. But in a very short duration, it changed the scenario of the financial situation in Latin America. Today, BitPagos is helping numerous users and traders in Argentina. Also, it brags over 3 lakhs users in Latin America.

What is BitPagos Inc?

BitPagos is the Bitcoin and electronics payments-based start-up in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was co-founded by Sebastian Serrano in 2013. Presently, it is one of the oldest blockchain-based company in the world. BitPagos was at the battlefield final at TechCrunch Disrupt New York in 2016. That time, the company marked the new beginning of the Cryptocurrency age.

The company starts the new chapter of Blockchain technology in 2017, with a new name Ripio Credit Network. As a matter of fact, Ripio is the Spanish word for gravel. Which literally means, the raw material to build roads. Apparently, the company is building the roads for the digital economy in Latin America.

How BitPagos stand different from other Bitcoin Start-ups?

We know that credit card is the best option for online purchasing. But bank accounts are must to have credit cards. However, it is very difficult in the Latin American region, where very few persons have credit cards. Also, one-half of the adults in Argentina, and other parts of Latin America don’t have bank accounts yet.

For the first time in a world, BitPagos enables the non-banking credits using blockchain technology. It’s a big step to promote financial inclusion in the sphere, which was tolerating the series of financial crises over the decades.

Sebastian Serrano- Mastermind of BitPagos

Sebastian Serrano
Image Source – Google Images

Sebastian Serrano is a software developer. He is also famous as a serial entrepreneur in Argentina. Currently, he is the CEO and co-founder of BitPagos, which is today known as the Ripio Credit Network.

Early Life

He grew up in Choele Choel, Rio negro, Argentina. Since the teenage, Sebastian was fascinated by programming and start-ups. In fact, he started programming at the age of 7. Sebastian was an intelligent kid. During the high school day, he helped to build the first Internet Service Provider of his hometown in Patagonia.

Earlier Achievements

Before redefining the cryptocurrency age, he was a software developing entrepreneur. He founded a software development consulting firm, familiar as devsAr.com. Also, he worked for the Ministry of Finance, Argentina. Later, he founded the company BitPagos, which is one of the successful bitcoin start-ups.

Inspiration for founding BitPagos

Sebastian witnessed the three economic collapses in Argentina. During that period, he saw the struggle of his parents to feed the family. He lived among those people, who are still apart from conventional banking. Also, he was intimate with the difficulties people have to face for trade and to keep their savings.

Thus, his objective has always been to promote financial inclusion all over Latin America. Exclusively, covering the region historically left away by the traditional banking system.

Triumph of BitPagos (Ripio)

BitPagos launched the Bitcoin processor in 2013. It was the time when blockchain technology just came out of the eggshell. Afterward, the company launched the crypto wallet, which first time enabled online credit services. Ripio wallet is the main product of the company which offers many services. Like utility payments, mobile phone top-ups, cryptocurrency brokerages, and other traditional wallet services. In addition, provides credit services using digital currency.

Later Successes

Currently, the company is working to run real-world fiat on-ramps in Argentina. Also, to encourage convenience stores to sell small amounts of bitcoin. As for now, around 8000 stores are active across the country. Today, Ripio has more than 250,000 users. Furthermore, it aims to expand the services into Mexico, Brazil, and other regions of the world.

Ripio, formerly BitPagos is the best example of an innovative start-up, which has marked the beginning of a new digital economy.

AT&T Will Now Let Its Users Pay Bills Using Cryptocurrency

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The American network provider company, AT&T, has announced that it has partnered with the BitPay payment service to allow people to use their cryptocurrency to pay their AT&T bills. By doing so, AT&T has become the first network company to add cryptocurrency as one of the payment methods for its users. The option has been added to both the AT&T official website as well as the app myAT&T.

at&t
Image Source: bitcoinexchangeguide.com

Though the company does not accept the crypto payments directly, it has integrated the BitPay payment service to its platform to carry out all the crypto transaction. Also as AT&T has not revealed on which cryptocurrencies it will support, it is quite predictable that it may support all the currencies that are supported by BitPay. The currencies that BitPay support, include Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Gemini USD, Paxos, and Circle’s US Dollar Coin etc.

“We’re always looking for ways to improve and expand our services. We have customers who use cryptocurrency, and we are happy we can offer them a way to pay their bills with the method they prefer.” the vice president of AT&T Communications Finance Business Operations, Kevin McDorman, said in a statement.

The users who want to pay through their cryptocurrencies just need to go to the BitPay option in the payment method list, and they will be able to easily pay through their cryptos. The app, as well as the website, can take the payment in the form of crypto, or the combination of fiat and crypto. BitPay will be responsible for carrying out the verification and the transaction of the crypto.

Since the company has only provided this facility for the online payments, the other users will need to wait for the payment option to come in stores. Also, for now, there may be only a minority using the payment method as most of the people are still away from using bitcoins or the other digital currencies like the fiat currencies.

UK Users will Now Get to Spend Their Cryptos with the New Coinbase Visa Debit Card

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In recent years, people have become more inclined towards investing in Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, but still most of the times, they are not sure of how to spend their cryptos. But now, Coinbase has announced that it is going to launch a debit card that will allow people to spend their cryptocurrencies on daily expenses.

coinbase visa debit card
Image Source: clark.com

Although Coinbase had support for the Shift card, a similar card that allowed the users to liquidate their cryptos, and use them to withdraw cash at various stores. But almost two months ago, Shift discontinued its services with Coinbase, and now Coinbase itself has come with a more feature-rich debit card for its users.

The company is launching a debit card along with a Coinbase Card app, that will help the users to manage all their cryptocurrencies and choose among those cryptocurrencies as to which one they want to spend. The app will generate instant receipts, notifications on every transaction and will help the user to manage their crypto balance. The card can also be used for ATM withdrawals with a free withdrawal limit of £200 per month, and also does not have any maintenance cost.

The card is a Visa debit card issued by PaySafe and will cost a 2.49% interest on every purchase made through it. Issuing the card alone will charge the user a £4.95 ($6.48). The card will come with a spending limit of £10,000 ($13,092) per day and every reverse transaction will cost the user a £20 ($26.19).

Earlier in 2017, the London Block Exchange was working on a similar Visa card but failed to launch one. Also, many other companies have developed such cards in the past, but to use those cards the users had to pre-load a specified amount on them.

Coinbase will be responsible for every conversion of the crypto into fiat, and the amount will be deducted on the basis of the current rate of the cryptocurrency. With the Coinbase debit card, the users will be able to spend on movie tickets, food and other similar purchases. For now, the company has only announced the debit card for its UK and EU users.

Brian Armstrong : The Nerd Who Co-founded Coinbase; the Future “Google” of Crypto

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It is rare to find a single person with a technical background who also has a great sense of business. Such a person is capable of building a robust business model that will pay off really well and sustain in the changing technology and business needs. Brian Armstrong, a nerd from San Jose, who had been experimenting with various businesses, since his teens, and also had an immense interest in programming languages, ended up in building the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange; Coinbase.

Early Life

Armstrong was born on 25 January 1983 and was brought up in the San Jose, in California. He was still in school when he developed an interest in computer programming. He started learning Java and CSS, that led him to get work from local firms from San Jose when he was still in school and created websites for them. His neighbour’s garage was his first office.

Brian Armstrong
Image Source: techcrunch.com

In 2001, after completing his school, he went to Rice University, where he completed a graduate degree in Computer Science along with another graduate degree in Economics. He also received a master’s in Computer Science from the same university.

Early Career

During his bachelor’s in Computer Science, Armstrong had done a four months’ internship as the Team Lead at IBM San Jose. There he developed tools for Network Attached Storage devices based on Java. Later, when he completed his graduate degree in Computer Science, he started working as an Enterprise Risk Management Consultant at Deloitte and Touche.

In 2003, he co-founded UniversityTutor.com. The website helped people find personal tutors in their area. On 16 May 2011, Brian joined Airbnb as the software engineer and worked there for a year.

Founding Coinbase

Armstrong was always interested in starting some business and actively thought of many ideas for that. By the end of 2010, he came across to the concept of Bitcoin. Being a technical product, it was quite amusing for him. At the same time, he got familiar to the fact that there were not many marketplaces for the exchange of bitcoin.

Being a computer programmer and an economist, he was capable of conceiving a plan to create an exchange marketplace for Bitcoin. In July 2011, Brian came together with Fred Ehrsam, who worked at Goldman Sachs, to co-found Coinbase.

It was the time when a single Bitcoin priced at $10 and buying Bitcoins required serious tech chops. Coinbase was the alternative for such transactional platforms, where people could use the traditional bank accounts to purchase cryptocurrency, similar to using PayPal. The two founders got Coinbase to enter into Y Combinator startup incubator, in 2012, to raise funding for the company.

In October 2012, the two launched the company and started operations of buying and selling the cryptocurrency through bank transfers. In 2013, the company received funding worth US$5 million from the venture capital firm Union Square Ventures.

Due to the ease of use, by the year 2014, the company had a million users using its services. In the same year, the company acquired Kippt, the blockchain explorer service. It also launched the vault service for secure storage of bitcoin as well as added a feature to process Bitcoins to payment apps like Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.

In 2015, the company launched the Coinbase Exchange, through which the professional traders could exchange the cryptocurrency. By 2016, the company had added Ethereum to its platform and also rebranded the exchange name to Global Digital Asset Exchange (GDAX). Currently, the exchange process the transaction of multiple cryptocurrencies, but has stopped the same for Ethereum, due to suspicion of the attack on the network.

The company is currently processing its wallet in 32 different companies.

Personal Life

In 2017, Armstrong was listed as Fortune 40 under 40, and later, recode under the 100 list. By the end of 2018, he was among the list of billionaires, and his net worth was estimated between $900 million and $1 billion. Currently, he serves as the CEO of Coinbase, the company having over 200 employees.

Coinstar & Coinme Partners to Provide Bitcoin Purchase through Grocery Kiosks

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The America based coin-cashing machine maker, Coinstar, is now ready to offer bitcoin on the coin-counting kiosks at various grocery stores for easy cryptocurrency purchases. Yes! The company has partnered with the Seattle based Bitcoin ATM producers, Coinme, in order to enable people to buy Bitcoins at the grocery stores.

coinstar-kiosk
Image Source: bitcoinerx.com

Coinme is the first licensed Bitcoin ATM operator in the US, having a number of crypto ATMs in the parts of the 11 states, and Coinstar, too, operates a network of thousands of kiosks in the states. People usually use those kiosks to convert their change into bills or gift cards for easy shopping. But now with the same machines, people will also be able to buy Bitcoins.

Coinstar CEO Jim Gaherity, said, “Coinstar is always looking for new ways to offer value to our consumers when they visit our kiosks, and Coinme’s innovative delivery mechanism along with Coinstar’s flexible platform makes it possible for consumers to easily purchase Bitcoin with cash.”

Last year, Coinstar had joined its hands with Seattle based startup doxo, enabling people to pay bills at the Coinstar kiosks. The company also added the Amazon Cash deposit capability to it.

Coinstar will charge a particular fee, to its users for every purchase. They will be able to purchase bitcoin worth $2,500 and will also get vouchers on transactions through the machine. They can easily redeem the vouchers at the official website of Coinme.

Although the charges the Bitcoin ATM machines put on every transaction is too high, but people still find it more convenient. And expectations are that they won’t mind paying the hefty charges on buying Bitcoins through the Coinstar’s kiosks, due to the convenience it is going to provide. For now, the machine will only have the support for purchasing the Bitcoin over cash. In future, it may have the options for credit cards and digital money, too.

Initially, the company will have its cash-counting-cum-Bitcoin machines installed at a few selected stores of Safeway and Albertson, in California, Texas, and Washington. Coinme has also added in their announcement on their website that in future, their partnership with Coinstar will result in thousands of places to buy Bitcoin.

Binance

The Fight for Bitcoins- Binance acquires Mumbai-based WazirX

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Binance, which serves as the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange network has acquired WazirX is a huge move in the bitcoin market. The Mumbai-based exchange WazirX works within the Bitcoin-related crypto-currency domain. With this acquisition, Binance will be in a position to offer services to over 1 billion Indians. Here’s everything you need to know about the acquisition and what it means for the market.

The Future for India

The announcement regarding the acquisition came out today, out of the blue. The move is tilted to be a significant one that will change the way the nation exchanges Bitcoins. The announcement also says that Indians will now have the option of buying and selling crypto-currency using Indian currency from Nov 25. 

Words from the CEO

Nischal Shetty, who serves as the CEO of WazirX has made it clear that Binance now holds 100% of WazirX. A non-disclosure agreement prevented Nischal from providing any further details regarding the acquisition. However, reports state that the deal is worth around $5 to $10 million. The CEO also mentioned that Binance has plans to employ 20 members of WazirX. Furthermore, the company will function independently in a bid to involve more Indians in the crypto-currency revolution. 

Things are Looking Up

This acquisition will also help in adding the Indian fiat to Binance’s crypto-currency gateway. According to WazirX’s COO Siddharth Menon, adding such fiat ramps will help in boosting the overall economy. Such a move will help in expanding the crypto market and will help more people get access to this sector. Also, Binance is a world-leader in this aspect, and therefore, has access to most of the major traders around the world. Meanwhile, WazirX has been implementing and testing the technology required to make this dream a reality. With both the forces working together, we could be looking at a mass exodus to the cryptomarket by Indians around the country.

Plans for the Future

As per prior announcements, Binance also has plans to utilize WazirX’s auto-matching engine to make fiat-based transactions easier. Such a system will allow Indians to buy the Tether coin using their INR. Afterward, users have the option of trading the Tether with any cryptocurrency of their choice via Binance. As most of the developed nations have already moved to a crypto-currency based economy, the next big move will come from developing nations. India has the power of over 1 billion people, and hence, a mass crypto-market move can help the entire economy. This acquisition will help WazirX make fiat-based ramps and transactions easier for the whole world.

As per Changpeng Zhao, who serves as the CEO of Binace having such a young demographic in hand will help the company adapt and evolve. By making use of the new financial technology that WazirX provides, Binance seeks to play a crucial role in encouraging the adoption of crypto-currency around the world.

Crypto-Currency in India

In 2018, the Reserve Bank of India forbids banks from helping and loaning money to crypto-currency firms. Though several companies filed petitions to reverse this decision, the case is pending. The next hearing of the case is scheduled for January 2020 in the Supreme Court. Furthermore, recently the government proposed a bill of banning crypto trading with a ten-year jail sentence in case of violations. However, several such firms are running successfully in India, with one of the main ones being WazirX.

Founded in 2018, WazirX has grown exponentially about its trading volume and adoption. The company completes transactions amounting to over $30 million a month, and have also made in-roads into the app market, with more than 200,000 downloads. Shetty runs a #IndiaWantsCrypto campaign on Twitter, and the campaign has helped to raise awareness regarding the crypto ecosystem. Members of crypto exchanges have been meeting with Members of Parliament to discuss crypto trading’s future in India. Shetty believes that the acquisition will help the economy as Binance has top-class regulators and negotiators. 

Strict laws by the government had prevented such a large merger until now, but this acquisition might be the first of many to follow! It will be interesting to see how the acquisition impacts the fledgling Indian crypto-market, and whether the government will also take a positive stand soon.

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