Bitcoin is continuing to grow, and it’s starting to look like its here to stay, which is great news in my opinion. Helping Bitcoin’s progress is the newly-launched Coinbase — this online service functions like the Paypal for Bitcoin transactions. Basically, Coinbase makes Bitcoin transfers much easier overall. Coinbase was created by Brian Armstrong, who was the software engineer at AirBnB, the peer-to-peer service that allows anyone to rent our their home or apartment.
Investors in Coinbase include: Alexis Ohanian (reddit co-founder), Trevor Blackwell (Anybots, YC co-founder) and IDG Ventures.
There are several good online wallets for Bitcoin, and open source Bitcoin clients for the desktop. Why should someone use Coinbase instead?
Here are a few ways Coinbase tries to be different:
- They try to make Bitcoin easy to use for non-technical users. This means they avoid asking the user to deal with private keys, encryption, or any topics they might be unfamiliar to them.
- They try to make buying and selling Bitcoin with your local currency as simple as possible.
- They handle security and backups for you so don’t have to worry about losing your device, or forgetting to back it up.
(Note that all of these may not be built yet, but this is their goal for the product.) They understand there are a variety of users in the Bitcoin ecosystem from beginner to advanced, and they certainly do not claim to be the best solution for everyone.
Link: Coinbase and Coinbase Blog
Information is power and now I\’m a !@#$ing dicttaor.