How cryptocurrencies can succeed

1. How cryptocurrencies can succeed Greg Brockman Stripe CTO // @thegdb
2. The three functions of money… • Store of value (place to hold savings)! • Unit of account (stable increment for records)! • Medium of exchange (way to transport value)
3. Bitcoin has promise as a currency in high-inflation economies, but it’s a tough sell for most consumers today
4. The three functions of money… • Store of value (place to hold savings) • Unit of account (stable increment for records) • Medium of exchange (way to transport value)
5. It’s surprisingly difficult to transport value • The experience of paying online hasn’t changed much in the past 20 years • International payments are very high friction
6. Cryptocurrencies are uniquely situated to solve these problems
7. Start with building gateways which allow consumers to keep thinking in local currency CAD <-> BTC Consumer Bitcoin network
8. How a gateway works • Consumer has an account with the gateway, likely tied to their bank account • Consumer specifies all actions in fiat currencies
9. The world’s financial systems are largely isolated today.
11. Building a gateway • Gateway complies with local regulations (e.g. identity verification) • Gateway doesn’t need any cross-border relationships
12. Given a global network of gateways, build a great payment experience cad-gateway.com/alice
13. Bitcoin would be the IP layer of payments stripe.com <> cad-gateway.com/alice ! 50.18.187.106 <> 1PCa6dEQFEy…
14. Not the first global network
15. Not the first global network
16. Not the first global network
17. How does this compare to Visa? [x] Network for initiating transactions and moving funds [ ] Consumer trust and protection (chargebacks, stolen cards) [ ] Setting rules and regulations, ejecting bad actors
18. Unless we solve decentralized reputation, we’ll see the emergence of a few centralized consumer trust providers
19. Starting to see consumer protection emerge in the form of escrow ! ! ! ! ! ! However, escrow is unlikely to be the long-term solution
20. Instead, we’ll see “consumer trust” providers emerge, gaining traction by boosting purchases + = ??
21. cad-gateway.com/alice The consumer trust providers will mediate chargebacks for purchases under their aegis Purchase protected with ??
22. Because these consumer trust providers will have such strong brands, gateways will want to co-brand with them
23. The trust providers will need to set and enforce rules for merchants and gateways to work with them
24. So… what did we gain? • A technologically-open ecosystem • A decomposition of the existing layers into independent companies • A truly global network for both P2P and consumer-merchant transactions
25. Open question: how do we bootstrap the gateway ecosystem?
26. Greg Brockman Stripe CTO // @thegdb