The interesting thing about that observation is that it’s very much about how the internet get’s used in the West.
In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.
Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal’s micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction.
If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.
Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.
Regarding Ripple, I thought that in the United States, financial institutions were required to know their users’ identities. I don’t see how this isn’t blatantly illegal.
The interesting thing about that observation is that it’s very much about how the internet get’s used in the West. In China where a lot of internet use happens in internet cafés where uses pay the internet café by the hour micropayments for virtual goods are used more frequently than in the West.
Additionally transaction costs are a big deal when it comes to micropayments. Paypal’s micromayment fee is 5% + $0.05 per transaction. If we would have cheap micropayment there a chance that a greater ecosystem of services that need micropayments can grow.
Bitcoin did promise being cheap but still have some substantial transaction costs. On the other hand Ripple (https://ripple.com/) provides the opportunity of a cost of $0.0001 per transaction.
Regarding Ripple, I thought that in the United States, financial institutions were required to know their users’ identities. I don’t see how this isn’t blatantly illegal.
Two nodes in the Ripple network that trade trust each other know their identities. The actual trade happens between those two nodes.
But even if they need to do more know-your-customer formalities I don’t see why that should push the price much higher.
Google Ventures does invest in the company behind Ripple, so they seem to believe it’s legal.