East Coast Editor of TechCrunch, John Biggs, says he is leaving the “best job I ever hard” to launch Freemit, a Blockchain-powered Fintech startup.
Freemit is a streamlined, inexpensive alternative to the current remittance and currency exchange systems. Using the blockchain and a local currency in/local currency out vision, they make moving money cheaper, better, and friction-free. And what’s even more cool if you sign up and when they launch your account, it will be loaded up with a free $10 (on them) for you to send to anyone, anywhere (you cannot withdraw this money. You have to send it to someone). That’s the best growth hack of 2016 so far!
According to an email he recently sent out Biggs says:
“Our banks are robbing us. If you send $100 anywhere in the world, it will cost you and the receiver between $5-$17, depending on how you send it. If it needs to get there right away, you will pay even more to do it. If you can wait 3 to 4 days then you will pay less. Either way the bank wins.
If it is an instant transfer the bank can charge high fees. If it takes 3-4 days, the bank gets to take advantage of the ‘float.’ You may not know it, but banks can use your money to make money for even just a few days.
And trust me, they do. And this doesn’t make sense anymore. Because the world has changed. There is this thing called the Internet, which changed everything. Email killed the inefficient postal service.
iTunes killed the record companies. Amazon is killing brick and mortar stores. The list goes on. Every industry in the world has been transformed. Disrupted. Except banking. And except money transfer. But that is going to change. It has to change. Why has it taken so long?”
And he colourfully writes at the blog:
Amazon and ecommerce are fast making malls obsolete. Skype has made international phone calls obsolete. Craigslist and online publishing is killing the traditional news business. Computers and mobile phones have transformed the way we create and produce. LinkedIn has transformed the world of resumes and hiring.
No industry is safe. But one industry has been strangely resistant to the massive disruption of the information age. It’s the world of banking and money transfer.
But in 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, an obscure crypto-currency – Bitcoin was born. It is quietly changing the future of money. Bitcoin is controversial, and many critics have dismissed it as a fad although the growth both of the currency’s use, and its price would argue otherwise.
But whether Bitcoin conquers, or fades into obscurity, the the technology that it has introduced – the open blockchain ledger – will change everything about money in the future. The genie is out of the bottle. There is no going back.
Check out Freemit online.