Got Bitcoins? Coinbase Lets You Use Them

It’s one thing to bitcoins, but where to use them? Coinbase can make it possible to both buy and spend bitcoins using its own digital wallet. Company executive Adam White recently spoke with MPD CEO Karen Webster about the startup’s fast growth and what he believes the future holds for the controversial cryptocurrency.

The discussions around Bitcoin have led to what actually is quite a growing phenomena, exchange issues aside. In fact, more and more merchants are accepting bitcoins, and consumers are turning to it as well, especially young, technologically adept male adults, notes Adam White, director of business development at Coinbase.

Coinbase, which was founded in June 2012, essentially serves as a simple on-ramp and off-ramp for everyday users to access Bitcoin to both buy and sell bitcoins, and for merchants to use to accept the cryptocurrency, White said during a recent podcast interview with MPD CEO Karen Webster.

(jump to:  2:53) “What’s great about Bitcoin is we see merchants of all shapes and sizes that adopt Bitcoin as a payment option,” he said, saying the range is from small mom-and-pops to very large companies, such as Overstcok.com, which processes more than $1 billion in sales. “We believe the benefits of accepting Bitcoin as a payment solution are universal, regardless of the size of the organization.”

For merchants, Bitcoin reduces credit card fees, and it eliminates charge-backs to create a frictionless, borderless payment, White said.

To make its revenue, Coinbase charge consumers 1 percent of the currency conversion, either when transferring from the Coinbase digital wallet bitcoins into dollars, or vice versa. It charges merchants similarly when they want to convert bitcoins they’ve accepted, White said, noting there are some 1 million Coinbase user wallets now and some 5,000 to 10,000 are added per day.

(jump to: 7:42) “We saw last year alone, in 2013, roughly 6,000 percent appreciation of the Bitcoin relative to U.S. dollar, he said.  “And a lot of consumers, for lack of a better term, wanted to speculate on a future value of Bitcoin, and a 1% service fee to safely and quickly purchase bitcoins and store those bitcoins without the coin bidding seemed like a very positive value for the consumer.”

Some 26,000 merchants also use Coinbase’s payment tools, White added. (jump to:  6:15) “Today’s Bitcoin price is roughly $8 billion, and when a merchant has the ability for their customers to pay in Bitcoin, they’re kind of tapping into a new pool of wealth,” he said.

To learn more about Coinbase and White’s views on where Bitcoin is headed, listen to the full podcast by clicking below.

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CoinbaseadamW100 Adam White, Director of Business Development, Coinbase

Adam previously worked as a consultant for Bain & Co. and was a product manager at Activision Blizzard. Before that, he tested experimental aircraft as a captain in the U.S. Air Force.