‘Bitcoin potentially disruptive to Paypal and Visa’

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have to potential to replace services like Paypal and Visa, even though this isn’t likely to happen any time soon. That’s the assessment of Lisa Ellis, an analyst at the financial research firm Moffet-Nathanson. Ellis believes services like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal should embrace crypto in order to survive.

As a example why these existing financial services should embrace crypto and blockchain technology, Ellis states that cross-border payments work better with crypto. She believes Visa and Mastercard will lose their marketshare to Ripple and Veem if they don’t adjust.

According to Tim Draper the time to buy your coffee with crypto will soon be upon us. He believes this will happen within the next few years, he told in December. Draper invested $1.25 million in OpenNode, a fintech company that’s all about integrating bitcoin payments within existing infrastructures. Consumers pay in bitcoin, and merchants receive dollars or euros.

Visa and Mastercard already have physical competition from crypto cards like Wirex and BitPay. In addition Ripple is slowly gaining market share in the world of banking. Several major banks are already using Ripple’s services for cross-border payments, making complicated transfers by bank themselves obsolete.

Paypal and credit card companies aren’t major fans of cryptocurrencies anyway. Paypal often freezes accounts associated with crypto transfers, while Visa has been suspending services for bitcoin payment cards in the past. Yet, currently there are plenty of offerings for bitcoin powered debit cards.

Originally published at NEDEROB.