Bitreserve has announced its customers will now be able to conevrt and exchange the digital currency completely for free.
Bitcoin company Bitreserve has announced that it will provide its services absolutely for free. The users will now be able to instantaneously exchange and convert world currencies for zero fees. Previously, Bitreserve charged 0.45% commission for BTC-USD transactions.
“Bitreserve now makes exchanging and converting the major currencies of the world as instant and free as email while removing tens of billions of dollars in fees and commissions charged by banks, bitcoin and credit card companies, and money transfer businesses,” the company said in a press-release.
Halsey Minor, CEO of Bitreserve, compares the exchange with Salesforce.com, Google Voice, CNET and OpenDNS, the companies he co-founded. According to Minor, these firms have shown that better products and services can be provided to consumers at low or zero cost.
“When I was CEO of CNET I made the decision to give away content for free, and CNET quickly became a NASDAQ 100 company, valued at $7.5 billion at its peak. CNET transformed the publishing industry forever,” Minor stated.
Currently, companies within the finance industry often hide costs from its customers with fees being targeted at those consumers who can afford it. By making its services completely free, Bitreserve makes us closer to a more transparent and fair financial system.
Bitreserve enables its users to convert digital currency into a range of currencies, including pounds, yuan, yen, pesos, dollars, rupees and swiss francs, and into various precious metals, such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium.
If you want to use the company’s services or make a deposit, it’s necessary to own bitcoins. Moreover, if customers receive funds in virtual currency they can only spend it in digital currency.
The move raises the competitiveness of Bitreserve, as other similar companies require users to create bank accounts and charge a commission.
Since the company’s creation in October 2014, Bitreserve has processed over $14.5 million worth of transactions worldwide.
Some experts do not believe that the company will be able to operate during a long period of time. “No business that offers its services for free can do so sustainably over a long period of time without other revenue sources,” Stan Stalnaker, a board member of the Digital Asset Transfer Authority told CNBC.
In March, Bitreserve announced the launch of Changemoney.org service that provides a visualization of the customers’ money, location and transactions.
In late 2014, the company added a new commodity, called Bitoil, thus allowing its users to hold value in oil. Besides ordinary customers, Bitreserve expects Bitoil to change businesses dependable on oil, including trucking, shipping fleets and airlines.
Polina is an undergraduate student at Belarusian State Economic University (BSEU) where she is studying at the faculty of International Business Communication for a degree specializing in Intercultural Communication. In her spare time she enjoys drawing, music and travelling.