Stripe Utopia: Making Bitcoin a non-monetary "0 threshold"

Absrtact: Finally, there is a company that is willing to seriously think about Bitcoin, it is Silicon Valley start-up company Stripe. In the Internet trading process envisioned by stripe, bitcoin or other similar cryptographic virtual currency agreements have the advantages that are not available in the real financial system. Look at

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Finally, there is a company willing to seriously think about Bitcoin, it is Silicon Valley start-up company Stripe. In the Internet trading process envisioned by stripe, bitcoin or other similar cryptographic virtual currency agreements have the advantages that are not available in the real financial system. Let's see what they say.

In the real world financial system, national currency is unable to realize the free convertibility of one country's currency and all other countries ' currencies because of political and economic restrictions. The internet as a universal way of information transmission, on this basis to build a neutral, open virtual currency system in terms of universality than the local currency stronger. Apple Gift Cards and Amazon Coin are similar forms, but their use is limited to two business areas (including products and businesses), not as open as a currency. The virtual currency similar to the bitcoin is superior to the real currency in generality, and wins the cash tokens offered by the companies in the open, which is the valuable characteristic of the time.

Money has four functions: the yardstick of value, means of payment, storage means and means of circulation. Bitcoin, like the earliest currency in China, is a shell that only exercises part of it. In the period before China developed a universal monetary system, shells, because of their ornamental value and scarcity, became the first substitute for goods to exchange chips, which is similar to the principle of Bitcoin.

The existing Cross-border online payment platform needs to face many problems. When they are confronted with foreign cash flows or transactions, they need to cooperate with each other's banks or currency clearing institutions to convert one country's currency into the target currency and eventually to pay the payee. If there is an open, global standard that allows all countries to use such an intermediate settlement standard, it is only necessary to convert the currency into this token at the time of all inbound acts, and then settle this generation into local currency by the institution where the payee is located. This efficiency is significantly higher than the existing system and is not subject to the convertibility and negotiability of currencies. Bitcoin (and the virtual currency of its kind) satisfies the requirement of acting as a token. It can connect national currencies without restrictions, and it is an open standard that allows developers or products to build trading systems on top of their agreements.

So the Bitcoin protocol becomes the presence of a similar IP address, connect users and their electronic wallet address, users directly input similar to the site domain name of the payee user name or wallet address, by the Bitcoin protocol to translate it into a complex encrypted wallet address and the network transmission finally completed the transaction. The most important point is that this kind of backstage change does not challenge their original payment habits to the user. On the contrary, due to increased efficiency and versatility, the payment process has become more streamlined and closer to the forms of transactions they use in real life. At the same time, this exchange-based transaction allows the virtual currency to coexist with the real currency, each of which poses no substitute for the threat.

The real banking and trading system is similar to VISA-like credit certification and Cross-border, cross-regional clearing channel brand, which mainly provides financial institutions and users with three values:

Cross-border and trans-regional transfer and payment settlement network. With detailed and comprehensive user regulations and constraints. Provide user credit guarantee and Trade protection mechanism (Fund backtracking and stolen loss reporting, etc.).

Bitcoin has the first feature and is naturally associated with the 2nd in the technical aspects of its Protocol. But as a new, not be familiar with the user to regulate the virtual concept, it has a disadvantage in the brand credibility.

As a payment tool or settlement platform, the core asset is the brand. The brand effect can expand the audience and bring a lot of benefits with the explosion of the Internet. These platforms eventually end up with industry consolidation, leaving only one or a few, like VISA, MasterCard and UnionPay. and similar banks ' capital savings and distribution channels would like to be certified and co-operative with such trusted brands. The Bitcoin protocol is proved to be a mature and complete forgery-proof virtual transaction protocol, which can become the brand of credit certification and settlement channel in the Internet world.

At this point, the purpose of stripe support Bitcoin has been clear:

to create a more open payment platform. To facilitate access to users around the world, while increasing the efficiency of regional settlement. Let their own payment, settlement platform to break the political, economic causes of the financial, monetary system territory. Become a truly global unified payment platform that serves all users worldwide.

But before that, there are still a few unresolved challenges: with the Bitcoin protocol as a common settlement back-end standard for each trading platform, the user's transaction process will be highly simplified, eventually the sense of the platform will be greatly reduced, its own brand value and recognition of users no longer important. These trading platforms (such as Alipay, APCA, ELV, SEPA, Nacha, etc.) will be willing to adopt this common standard for open and cross-platform interoperability, knowing that such results will occur. In addition, the local governments do not even support the situation, how to establish the exchange rate of Bitcoin and local currencies.

In any case, the utopia envisioned by Stripe allows us to see another use of the Bitcoin protocol in the central-use scenario.