Most people could hardly imagine a practical use for the Internet until AOL came along. At its peak it was a very useful instrument that offered daily access to the Word Wide Web. Coinbase recently launched an exchange that may have a similar impact on Bitcoin. If you need further proof then compare the early growth of the AOL user database with the same parameter of Coinbase. Coinbase has even higher implementation rates than AOL in the early 90s. Here is a look at as to why this is happening.
Bitcoin’s growth has slowed down considerably, especially in comparison to 2013-beginning of 2014, and a lot of people are used to the fact that leadership and innovation usually come to us from venture companies. From a venture company point of view Bitcoin has matured considerably in the past year and became something from nothing – an industry dominated by heavyweights such as Coinbase, BitPay, Circle, BitGo, ChangeTip, BitFury, BitNet, OkCoin, Blockchain and many others. It would have been easy to miss this transformation if you didn’t follow the Bitcoin industry very closely.
Recent news of Coinbase launching their own Bitcoin exchange and receiving record investment of $75 million has been widely publicized. However, not everyone noticed that the company has implemented dollar accounts in addition to existing Bitcoin accounts. From a pragmatic point of view this means that you can now sell your Bitcoin and keep the funds in your Coinbase account. This means that Bitcoin is no longer a philosophical/technological promise, but a convenient payment method.
Thanks to the $75 million investment you can now open an account from countries like Poland or Greece, wire money or send money via Bitcoin into the said account, and store money in it in US dollars. Your money is completely isolated from your local currency, but can be easily spent in your country of residence. Coinbase has taken the best of both worlds: all the functionality of a bank without major risks or commission. In addition to traditional banking services Coinbase created the easiest, cheapest and the least corrupt way of buying US dollars.
The company has also recently expanded the list of countries it works with, and added Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Norway, and Croatia. The banking service is now available in 24 countries, while the Bitcoin wallet function is available in 166 countries.
All that Coinbase needs right now is debit cards. They have created a truly global bank with possibilities that traditional banks are yet unable to offer unless they start using Bitcoin. Coinbase’s market mechanism is, in essence, access to the US dollar even for the most regulated and repressive jurisdictions.