When most people hear about Bitcoin, whether for the first or the tenth time, they ask one simple question: “What is it?”
Like an automobile, Bitcoin is technically advanced, and it can appear complicated, depending on how much you want to know about it. But also like an automobile, it doesn’t require you to be a technical expert in order to use it—and for it to change the way you interact with the world.
ATM’s made their debut in New York in 1960 appealing to gamblers and prostitutes who wanted to avoid tellers, but it took until the end of the 1960’s before people really began to use the technology.
Juniper Research predicts that by 2017, there will be a billion mobile banking customers around the world. 40% of these will still take the time to get on the phone or visit their bank’s physical branches for certain inquiries. And according to research from KPMG, more than half of global banking consumers express a real desire for combined social, personalized and “human” interactions to be integrated into a bank’s online services and mobile apps.