Expert: Crypto-currencies set to revolutionize paying for goods and services

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Wednesday 10 Feb 2016 - 13:50 Makkah mean time-1-5-1437 (Image from Coindesk) Dubai, (IINA) - Crypto-currencies, such as Bitcoin, are set to revolutionize how people pay for goods and services and move money around the world, said Nicolas Carey, co-founder and President of Blockchain, one of the world’s leading digital wallet and software providers on Tuesday, WAM reported. Addressing the three-day World Government Summit in Dubai, Carey described crypto-currencies as digital currencies that are exchanged over the internet and primarily used outside existing banking and governmental institutions. "There is a great deal of talks about financial inclusion, but there are 2.5 billion people on earth who do not have access to a bank account", Carey said. "Even in the United States, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, 20.1 percent of households are underbanked and 33% of millennials do not expect to have a bank account in the next five years. If you combine all these people together, with everyone who has access to the internet over smartphones, you can see the potential for crypto-currencies”. "Digital is part of everyone’s DNA. Digital money is a natural extension to the digital world. It offers frictionless and borderless transactions that are more open and more equal". More than $1 billion has been invested in Bitcoin technology, which Carey described as the largest distributive computing project in the world. He added that Bitcoin is also a transaction network that offers an alternative currency, a trusted ledger that can track transactions and chain of title and settlement with a high degree of certainty, all essential requirements of a trusted currency. It is noteworthy that the first Bitcoin transaction took place in 2010 when 10,000 Bitcoins were used to buy two pizzas. At today’s exchange rate, the two pizzas would be worth $5 million. According to Carey, crypto-currencies will open up a new world of possibilities that impact people’s everyday lives. He gave as examples refrigerators fitted with a Bitcoin wallet that can order and pay for groceries; people in countries with collapsing currencies using a crypto-currency to protect the value of their money, or as a hedge against corruption. AG/IINA