{"id":28770,"date":"2014-04-22T01:48:47","date_gmt":"2014-04-22T01:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7f20002697"},"modified":"2014-04-22T01:48:47","modified_gmt":"2014-04-22T01:48:47","slug":"sir-richard-branson-wants-a-transparent-cryptocurrency-but-will-customers-1398131327","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/culture\/sir-richard-branson-wants-a-transparent-cryptocurrency-but-will-customers-1398131327","title":{"rendered":"Sir Richard Branson Wants a Transparent Cryptocurrency, But Will Customers?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
<\/figure>\n

The Endorsements<\/h2>\n

Billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic airlines was the first to accept bitcoins for space flight, recently described<\/a>bitcoin as \u201cthe pioneer of a global currency\u201d in an interview in the April issue of Delta\u2019s SKY Magazine. Branson clearly believes in bitcoin. Not only is he accepting it, but he\u2019s invested in it<\/a> as well. But his comments indicate that he does not believe bitcoin will be the ultimate winner in the cryptocurrency wars.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt may not be the perfect global currency of the future yet, but it\u2019s the pioneer of a global currency,\u201d Branson said.<\/p>\n

He joins other tech giants in his assessment. \u201cThe Foundation is involved in digital money but unlike Bitcoin it would not be anonymous digital money,\u201d Bill Gates said<\/a> in February. \u201cIn Kenya M-PESA is being used for almost half of all transactions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gates, Branson, and Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and CEO of Square all believe any successful online payments system will need more transparency than bitcoin currently offers.<\/p>\n

So what \u201ctransparency\u201d does M-PESA offer<\/a> that bitcoin doesn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

Well, first, all customers must provide M-PESA an original identification document in order to open an account. Retailers who accept M-PESA are trained and required to check customers\u2019 ID cards every time they make a purchase and each purchase requires a three-factor authentication involving ID, the SIM card, and a PIN.<\/p>\n

Like bitcoin, every single transaction in M-PESA is recorded and can be monitored by Safaricom, along with the location of the device used in the transaction. Safaricom runs what it calls bank-grade anti-money laundering checks, and sends regular reports to the Central Bank of Kenya.<\/p>\n

Between the value of customer data and how much easier it makes anti-money laundering reporting, it\u2019s clear why Gates, Branson, and Dorsey might be interested in such transparency. However, there is a tension between transparency and security. One of the reasons bitcoin transactions are by-default more secure than credit card purchases is that its transactions involve transmissions of personal data.<\/p>\n

In addition, while bitcoin transactions are by-default only semi-anonymous, some bitcoin users appreciate the privacy of the fully anonymous transactions bitcoin makes possible.<\/p>\n

Like Friendster and Myspace, bitcoin is probably not the be-all and end-all of decentralized, peer-to-peer online currencies. But it\u2019s impossible to know what exactly the Facebook of cryptocurrency will look like. Only time will tell if transparency is something customers will value as much as entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Endorsements Billionaire entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Galactic airlines was the first to accept bitcoins for space flight, recently describedbitcoin as \u201cthe pioneer of a global currency\u201d in an interview in the April issue of Delta\u2019s SKY Magazine. Branson clearly believes in bitcoin. Not only is he accepting it, but he\u2019s invested in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3674,"featured_media":28769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3606,708],"class_list":["post-28770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture","tag-richard-branson","tag-transactions"],"author_data":{"id":3674,"name":"Cathy Reisenwitz","nicename":"cathy-reisenwitz","avatar_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/cathy-reisenwitz-promo-image-96x96.jpg"},"featured_image_url":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/sir-richard-branson-wants-a-transparent-cryptocurrency.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3674"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}