While information can now be easily transmitted over the Internet via email or text message, global payments, on the other hand, are still in the “age of faxes,” says the former president of PayPal.
In an interview with CNBC on September 11, the former PayPal executive and co-founder of Bitcoin lightning payment service Lightspark said that he believed Bitcoin’s Lightning Network could solve the cumbersome process of sending money across jurisdictions.
“If you stop [someone] If you want to communicate with them you can ask them for their email address and then you can easily send them an email in the next minute [and] You can text them,” Marcus said.
However, there is no universal protocol when it comes to transferring money over the internet, he said:
“If you want to send them money [but] They’re not a US citizen here using the same fintech app as one of the fintech apps you’re using, then you won’t be able to do that. So we are still in the fax era of global payments. “
Marcus explained that in this case, transferring money to a non-U.S. resident requires obtaining their bank account number, then going to a local bank and paying the $50 international wire fee.
“If it’s after 5pm on a Friday, you’re out of luck,” Marcus added.
david marcus at #bitcoin Serving as the underlying settlement layer for “trillions of dollars of transactions”pic.twitter.com/L21fmiwxyZ
— Alex Stanczyk∞/21m (@alexstanczyk) September 11, 2023
Marcus, who co-founded Lightspark in May 2022 and serves as CEO, said his company is now racing to use the Bitcoin Lightning Network to solve this problem.
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However, the former PayPal president believes that eventually the Bitcoin Lightning Network will not be used too much for daily shopping, but mainly for overseas transfers.
“Our point is really that Bitcoin is not a currency that people use to buy things.” The Lightspark boss explained that Bitcoin will be used to send dollars to people who will ultimately receive them in yen or euros on the other side of the world. .
Marcus said that Bitcoin’s settlement layer combined with the Lightning Network’s real-time payments enables cash finalization at a very low cost.
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