A crypto-currency world: Why Gyft’s CEO says bitcoin makes sense for international selling
What’s the practical use of bitcoin? There are plenty of legitimate answers to that question, as today’s Consensus conference in Manhattan revealed. Here’s one that, given both the economic and political turmoil taking place in parts of the world, has some added value — bitcoin makes international commerce safer.
”If you are a retailer on-line, selling and shipping goods to another country, you are at risk,” said Vinny Lingham, founder and CEO of Gyft, speaking at the conference hosted by CoinDesk. “And that’s the bottom line. With bitcoin, you’re not at risk to ship internationally.”
Bitcoin today is trading at about $240 per bitcoin.
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Bitcoin today is trading at about $240 per bitcoin.
Yuriko Nakao
Lingham spoke on a panel called “Finding the Critical Path to Mass Adoption,” along with Connie Chung, who brought bitcoin payments to travel-site Expedia, and Jon Downing of Visa. Lingham pointed to Africa as a prime example of currency problems affecting the populace when he explained how credit fraud in the continent has essentially cut out a billion people from the global economy.
Enter bitcoin. Because bitcoin transactions are irreversible and nearly instantaneous, the crypto-currency can open up the door to these and other new customers, which have money to spend, but are considered risks due to where they are from.
“That to me is a very strong use-case for bitcoin,” said Lingham, who founded Gyft in 2012, and was among the first mainstream companies to adopt bitcoin. “If they accept bitcoin, anyone will ship the goods to them, it’s like digital cash.”
This summer, Gyft announced Gyft Block, gift-cards developed with blockchain security company Chain.com and built with account numbers that change so that if they are sold or otherwise exchanged the original owner won’t have access to the account number.
“Anyone who has our wallet application, whoever is holding that digital card can move those funds around,” said Lingham. “But the number keeps changing based on the data in the blockchain.” Last year the giftcard industry exceeded $124 billion in sales, according CEB TowerGroup research on the industry.
After raising $7.5 million in venture capital from Google Ventures and others, Lingam sold Gyft to payments processing company First Data in 2014 for an undisclosed amount. While Gyft is officially based in Atlanta, a large contingent of its leadership is base in New York City.
Last month, First Data filed paperwork for an initial public offering with hopes to raise $100 million. According to a PYMNTS report in July, First Data is expected to go public at a valuation of $40 billion.
Via: http://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2015/09/10/a-crypto-currency-world-why-gyfts-ceo-says-bitcoin.html
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