3D Hubs, the largest global network of privately owned factories, and Bitcoin payment service provider BitPay have joined together through an official partnership.
BitPay is known as a global leader in bitcoin payment solutions which raised over $32 million in financing. 3D Hubs, representing the C2C (consumer to consumer) face of manufacturing, has also raised $4.5 million in the latest round.
It proved the fact that many major investors believe in a decentralized future for both money and industry. Actually, when 3D Hubs is the C2C face of manufacturing, Bitcoin can be considered the same face in money circulation sphere.
Moreover, similar ideologies Bitcoin and 3D printing are two technologies that are based on similar ideologies. Both of them remove the middle man: by simplifying monetary transactions and by making possible to prototype at home or in the office, respectively.
“3D Hubs brings a disruptive technology to the masses by decentralising 3D printing,” said Wouter Vonk, European Marketing Manager at BitPay. “This is in perfect synergy with what BitPay is doing for money transfers. But while we are making the physical concept of money digital, 3D Hubs is making digital concepts physical.”
It’s necessary to mention that the partnership is possible thanks to Adyen, a global provider of online, mobile, and point-of-sale payment solutions. The above-mentioned payment processor is behind AirBnB, Facebook, Uber, Spotify and Facebook. Via Adyen, 3D Hubs is going to integrate Bitcoin payments into their platform, enabling any one of 3D Hubs’ more than 13,000 networked printers to be used in exchange for the cryptocurrency.
Being asked about bitcoin acception, 3D Hubs co-founder, Bram de Zwart, explained:
“Bitcoin was the most requested feature by the 3D Hubs community. This makes sense as there is much overlap between Bitcoin and 3D Hubs as they are both platforms that enable communities to change large industries with a bottom-up approach to manufacturing and payments. With this launch we are making it possible for everyone to manufacture and purchase products without traditional centralised institutions in between.”
Both the Bitcoin and 3D printing spaces have shown a tremendous development over the last year. The partnership under discussion should further that growth and extend the availability of both technologies to over a billion people who are within 10 miles of any one of the hubs listed at 3D Hubs.
As 3D printing becomes more popular, and 3D Hubs’ network is becoming big, such a partnership seems to occur at just the right time, as it enables transactions to take place with as little friction as possible. It’s going to save either time or money, and make the 3D printing space even more widespread.
Eugenia graduated from Minsk State Linguistic University with a degree in Intercultural Communication, Translation/Interpretation (Italian, English). Currently she works as a business analyst, freelance interpreter and tutor. She’s fond of numismatics, photos, good books and sports, adores travelling and cooking.
