Bitcoin payment processor BitPay said the leading bitcoin firms should team up in order to drive the use of virtual currency.
Bitcoin payment services provider, BitPay, has suggested that the largest players in the cryptocurrency industry should start working together, IBTimes reported. Besides, the company proposed to establish a “Bitcoin Association” that will help to spur the wider adoption of virtual currency.
“I think a problem Bitcoin faces is that the largest companies – Coinbase, BitPay, Circle, Xapo – they should all kind of work together and talk more among each other,” BitPay’s chief commercial officer, Sonny Singh, told IBTimes.
“Have a Bitcoin Association. Like in America they used to have those commercials for milk: ‘Milk does the body good.’ That was a very powerful thing,” Singh continued.
The leading companies, he noted, could spend some of the funds raised this year to promote the digital currency. “Not marketing for their company, but marketing about Bitcoin: ‘Why a normal person would use bitcoin, how it can be used.’
“Getting the word out there – working together. You’ve got all this money people have raised. Let’s try to promote the community,” Singh said.
“We can definitely state from our side we see the opportunity and we would definitely be open to work together with other companies,” Marcel Roelants, general manager at BitPay in Europe, said.
“Maybe if you look at who is running these companies, they are often young people, people with a lot of great ideas, but not with the experience that you probably need to get this business to the next level. They are young, tech guys who are protective of their own ideas,” he added.
BitPay allows merchants to accept bitcoin payments and instantly convert it to fiat currency, thus eliminating the risk of cryptocurrency volatility. Last, year, the volume of bitcoin payments processed by the company surpassed $1 million per day.
One of the possible ways to further promote the usage of bitcoin is to offer rewards points for those who pay with digital currency, what is popular among game players. Bitcoin is also a great decision for travelers. While credit cards are often get declined overseas as part of fraud prevention, digital currency guarantees transaction.
Singh also said: “The industry is very competitive and everybody is very secretive. They don’t want anyone to know what they are working on. How do you get around that?”
“In the Bitcoin industry it would be great to see Coinbase and Blockchain work together; the wallet vendors and the processors all work together.”
Roelants also mentioned MasterCard and Visa, which, together with Europay, developed the EMV, a set of specifications for smart card payments and acceptance devices. Although being the key competitors, MasterCard and Visa managed to work together.
“They should open up their eyes and face reality. This industry is changing. I could think about a couple of combinations where MasterCard, Visa and Bitcoin could start over,” he said. “In the end people will only benefit together if the ecosystem becomes bigger, broader and better.”
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