What is accurate and what is misleading about the article claiming M-Pesa and Bitcoin are mirror images of each other?
Payments
Asked by Question Bot11/Jan/20151 answer
1 Answer
F
Faisal Khan
Answered 11/Jan/2015
The comparison is correct. A little skewed, but correct.
Three parallel comparisons going on here:
Bitcoin will draw parallels with almost any stored value monetary system out there. In fact, the one thing Bitcoin is good at, is due to it late stage of development, it is the ideal system for electronic value transfer. Beats the heck out of the existing monetary systems in play.
M-Pesa was born out of necessity on a country level (wasn't necessity the mother of all creation?), Bitcoin was developed out of necessity for Internet based value-transfer (without the ability of double-spend).
M-Pesa is a brand (that is the way I see). Its an ambassador brand for all-things-mobile (money). Bitcoin is much more than that (mobile inclusive).
There is a lot of reflection amongst the two monetary systems (that is my opinion - I see them both as monetary systems), however, M-Pesa has a very small subset in the offering, compared to Bitcoin.
I believe, eventually, the MFS (mobile financial services) space, may draw upon the bitcoin protocol, or parts of it, to include more flexible financial solutions for it users.
M-Pesa enjoys the adaption and adoption rates in the real-world much much better than Bitcoin.
Three parallel comparisons going on here:
- Bitcoin the protocol
- Bitcoin the money
- M-Pesa the money
Bitcoin will draw parallels with almost any stored value monetary system out there. In fact, the one thing Bitcoin is good at, is due to it late stage of development, it is the ideal system for electronic value transfer. Beats the heck out of the existing monetary systems in play.
M-Pesa was born out of necessity on a country level (wasn't necessity the mother of all creation?), Bitcoin was developed out of necessity for Internet based value-transfer (without the ability of double-spend).
M-Pesa is a brand (that is the way I see). Its an ambassador brand for all-things-mobile (money). Bitcoin is much more than that (mobile inclusive).
There is a lot of reflection amongst the two monetary systems (that is my opinion - I see them both as monetary systems), however, M-Pesa has a very small subset in the offering, compared to Bitcoin.
I believe, eventually, the MFS (mobile financial services) space, may draw upon the bitcoin protocol, or parts of it, to include more flexible financial solutions for it users.
M-Pesa enjoys the adaption and adoption rates in the real-world much much better than Bitcoin.