Thursday, March 12, 2015

More On Blythe Masters and Her Bitcoin Startup

Following up on "What in The World Is Blythe Masters Doing with A Bitcoin Startup?" I regret not pointing out that Ms Masters has more mental horsepower than multiple Winklevii (bilingual redundancy noted) and has probably spotted an angle to exploit that is beyond my area of competence.
Although that's never stopped me before.

Here's a bit more from BloombergView:

Benner on Tech: The Future of Bitcoin
People are Talking About…
Two very different companies are trying to create mass markets for Bitcoin: the startup 21 Inc., which just raised more money than any other digital-currency startup, and the new exchange Digital Asset Holdings, which just hired credit derivatives pioneer Blythe Masters to be its chief executive.

Both companies have abandoned the idea that Bitcoin can be a store of value or an alternative currency. Instead, they’re trying to replace old systems of record-keeping with the one that powers Bitcoin.

So if you were unlucky enough to buy a bitcoin at $1,000 (a bitcoin is now worth about $300), then you might also be unlucky enough to be holding it just as some of the smartest minds in tech and finance are moving beyond a world where we buy our laptops in Bitcoinpay our employees in Bitcoin or day trade Bitcoin....

Digital Asset Holdings is being a little clearer about what it wants to do, or as clear as one can be when one does not yet have a working product. Masters tells the Journal that her company wants to replace Wall Street’s antiquated, slow system of intermediaries and settlement delays with the much faster tools that power Bitcoin transactions. But Digital Asset Holdings would also use “the audit trails, credit limits and other checks and balances that help secure that traditional system.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say that Digital Asset has a shot at moving Wall Street onto a faster, cheaper trading system. That’s probably because I’m closer to the fifth stage of Bitcoin understanding.
Here's the press release via MarketWatch:
Digital Asset Holdings Delivers First-Of-Its-Kind Technology to Bridge the Gap Between Crypto and Mainstream Assets

Do note Ms. Masters' former boss Jamie Dimon took a contrary view last year:
"bitcoin developers are going to try and eat our lunch and that's fine."
-Institutional Investor, Oct. 10, 2014