This digital wallet will accelerate the advent of the Bitcoin era

Jeremy Allaire wants everyone to use Bitcoin.

Allaire is the co-founder and CEO of Circle, a digital currency startup that developed a bitcoin wallet and released its product last September. Despite its growing popularity, bitcoin is generally only used by geeks who are extremely concerned about privacy. Allaire wants to change this perception, and Circle's next generation product will allow users to store, send and receive dollars.

In other words, the Circle wallet will function much like any other digital wallet, except that it will also accept Bitcoin, allowing users to transact in their preferred currency. The new feature will be gradually made available to users in the coming weeks.

Allaire said, "We are still more concerned about the speculative value of Bitcoin, people buy and sell it as an asset. But mainstream users should also be able to enjoy the benefits of the Bitcoin protocol, which is instant, global, secure and free."

A hybrid system

Allaire said that the idea behind its wallet has been around for a long time, and that using Bitcoin as part of the payment system is not a new phenomenon, especially among online payment startups. Services such as BitPay, Coinbase and Braintree can also process Bitcoin transactions. In February this year, well-known payment company Stripe also joined the ranks of Bitcoin.

But Allaire pointed out that these payment processing companies can only enable merchants to accept Bitcoin payments and quickly convert them into the merchant's preferred currency. For everyday consumers, the experience of good Bitcoin payments is still limited, which has also slowed down the mainstream society's acceptance of this digital trend.

Circle's new feature is designed to make using Bitcoin less of a hassle. "If I support the Bitcoin movement and want to hold this currency instead of dollars, but my friends aren't that into Bitcoin, that's fine," Allaire said. "Circle can convert any money anyone sends me into Bitcoin, and they can just send me dollars."

Another feature the company is introducing is the ability to cover the risk of fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin during a transfer, as the value of Bitcoin remains fixed when the transaction is initiated.

Open borders

Allaire compared the new capabilities to the way information travels online. “As a company, we think of what we do as enabling the transfer of value based on open protocols, just like information is transferred over open protocols on the web.”

Ultimately, Circle wants to make money transfers as free as transferring information across borders online. But it's not that simple, Allaire admits, and involves bureaucracy and government authorizations. Circle has already started operations in Europe and is also eyeing China.

Allaire is a believer in Bitcoin and believes that it is only a matter of time before a cross-border payment system is realized. He wants users to be able to transfer money and make payments without too many obstacles, just like using emails and text messages.

Industry Leadership

With the wallet upgrade, Circle joins other tech companies that want to disrupt old financial institutions. These companies want to inject the magic of technology into old-school industries, allowing people to get useful information from the banking system and even change services such as home loans and small business loans. Wall Street has begun to pay attention to these companies and is also involved. Allaire believes that this is because Wall Street recognizes that Silicon Valley is a place of innovation, and they themselves do not have the Internet gene and need to learn through cooperation.

Circle recently received a new round of US$50 million in financing, led by Goldman Sachs and IDG Capital.