{"id":196,"date":"2014-07-03T05:56:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-03T05:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.holytransaction.com\/shakil-khan-cryptocurrencies-are-here\/"},"modified":"2020-11-22T04:12:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-22T02:12:04","slug":"shakil-khan-cryptocurrencies-are-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/holytransaction.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/shakil-khan-cryptocurrencies-are-here.html","title":{"rendered":"Shakil Khan: cryptocurrencies are here, embrace them"},"content":{"rendered":"
Whether it’s Bitcoin, or another name, cryptocurrencies are
\nalready disrupting payments and won’t be stopped, serial investor
\nShakil Khan<\/a> told the audience at Wired Money 2014. So get on board
\nwith change.<\/i><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/a><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
(Wired<\/a>) Khan explained how he has seen the growth of Bitcoin<\/a> from a
\nmuch-misunderstood, unstable currency, to a more mature offering
\nthat is finding its place in ecommerce and investor portfolios. So
\nrather than focus on regulation, which will only delay the
\ninevitable, the financial sector needs to focus on supervision and
\ntake on the opportunities cryptocurrencies provide.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Khan, interviewed on stage at the Wired conference by editor
\nDavid Rowan, has invested in Spotify and YPlan, and advised teen
\nfounder of Summly Nick D’Aloisio. But it was in 2012, when he first
\nheard about a payment company attempting to tackle the Bitcoin
\necosystem, that the cryptocurrency crossed his path. In the
\nfollowing years, he found himself becoming a point-of-contact for
\ninvestors, suddenly intrigued by a currency that went from $10-25
\nper Bitcoin in 2012 to $260 in 2013.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“At that stage I got a lot of inbound emails from VCs and
\nentrepreneurs asking who is this company Mt Gox? Not because I was
\nthe smartest person, but because there was a different wave of
\npeople who weren’t publicly talking about Bitcoin. Morgan Stanley
\nwas phoning me not because we had a relationship, but because
\npeople were calling them and asking advice, and they were coming to
\nme.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Most recently, Khan was part of a $510k investment round<\/a> into peer-to-peer payment solution
\nBitPay. That’s a lot of hard cash for a currency that dips and
\npeaks dramatically according to government opinion — for instance
\nwhen the FBI referred to it as a currency, Bitcoin became stronger;
\nwhen China restricted exchanges and warned it would keep an eye on
\nthe currency, its value tumbled.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“I don’t have the answer to this but no one is asking the
\naverage consumer to participate in this — it’s the same as
\nstocks,” said Khan. We in the tech industry are more than familiar
\nwith Bitcoin, beyond the Silk Road headlines, and those in the
\nfinancial sector have followed suit. But it is not yet something
\nthat is impacting the average banking customer. “Right now, it’s
\nsomething that’s not for the faint hearted, just like stock trading
\nwhere people make 3 percent gains one day, and 25 percent losses
\nthe day after.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
This kind of threat, is not enough to stall the progress being
\nmade in the cryptocurrency ecosystem — and this is because, as
\nKhan reiterated onstage, there is a “fundamental problem with
\npayments”.<\/div>\n
“I can sit here and make and send an audio or video message in
\nthree seconds. But if I want to pay someone 200 kroner online it’ll
\ncost be $32 and might take four days for the payment to arrive.
\nThat makes zero sense, and cryptocurrencies solve this
\nproblem.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We are seeing the cryptocurrency ecosystem rapidly evolve as a
\nresult of this, says Khan.<\/div>\n
“Two years ago the conversation was very much Silk Road and pizza<\/a>. Now VCs are investing in risk — we have
\nAndreessen Horowitz, Fred Wilson and Redpoint. This is a sector
\neveryone knows is going to get disrupted, and they need to be part
\nof that journey. Companies like Bit Pay were very early, now we
\nhave ecommerce companies starting accepting Bitocin. Amazon has its
\nown plans on virtual currency.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
“People once said the fax machine would never get disrupted,
\nthen we had email. We’ve seen this over and over, and if you have
\npassion and an appetite for risk, why wouldn’t you? I don’t want to
\nturn around and five years say why wasn’t I part of this.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We are seeing this interest in the ecosystem spread, as
\nevidenced by the stories being published by Khan’s own site
\nCoindesk, which are picked up by the likes of the Wall Street
\nJournal<\/i> and Dow Jones<\/i>. “Over the last 12 months it’s
\nmuch less of Silk Road, and more of Visa setting up a group looking
\ninto cryptocurrencies and Western Union or Ebay looking into
\nBitcoin.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
On the question of the legality, or government discomfort with
\nBitcoin, Khan points out that the US $100 note is the chosen
\ncurrency of the criminal world — it’s what they’ll find in raids,
\nand its what the CIA drops in bales of cash into Afghanistan.
\n“They’re not sending smartphones, they were sending US dollars.”
\nRecently, the US government sold off the 30,000 Bitcoin it seized
\nduring the Silk Road shutdown. Khan points, “I don’t remember the
\nUS government selling cocaine seized from raids, so you can’t say
\nit’s illegal and shouldn’t be allowed.”<\/div>\n
The government is always going to have some issues because when
\nyou don’t understand something, you get fearful of it.”<\/div>\n
The cost those 30,000 bitcoins sold for, is evidence enough that
\nthere is something attractive here for investors — Khan says the
\ncoins, currently priced at $650 each, went for above that
\nvalue.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
We need to stop holding on to traditional money as though it is
\nnot broken. “I’m guessing there are laser printers out there
\ndevaluing that money quicker than the paper can be printed,” Khan
\nsaid.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
“We know change is coming. Regulation will not shut this down,
\nit might just prolong this little a bit. You need to embrace
\ncryptocurrenices and try to understand why the core technology
\ncould help what you’re doing.”<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Open your free digital wallet here<\/a> to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether it’s Bitcoin, or another name, cryptocurrencies are already disrupting payments and won’t be stopped, serial investor Shakil Khan told the audience at Wired Money 2014. So get on board with change.   (Wired) Khan explained how he has seen the growth of Bitcoin from a much-misunderstood, unstable currency, to a more mature offering that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":715,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,77,83,656],"tags":[765,772,1307],"yoast_head":"\nShakil Khan: cryptocurrencies are here, embrace them -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/holytransaction.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/shakil-khan-cryptocurrencies-are-here.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shakil Khan: cryptocurrencies are here, embrace them\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whether it’s Bitcoin, or another name, cryptocurrencies are already disrupting payments and won’t be stopped, serial investor Shakil Khan told the audience at Wired Money 2014. 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