Dwolla better than Bitcoin? Way, way better marketed. Better UX.
Dwolla can improve its tech stack and have it be the UX layer on top of Bitcoin if it chooses. I guarantee you there are folks at Dwolla working on this. Dwolla = front end of payment protocol. Dwolla = bank?
Competing payment protocols = Bitcoin; Bank routing/Swift + Forex. There were efforts to abstract gold into a payment protocol in the 90s but they failed.
Bitcoin or one of its numerous derivatives (feathercoin, litecoin, terracoin, ppcoin, ixcoin, novacoin, namecoin, freicoin, "govcoin") will likley win as a payment protocol.
The bitcoin investors have zero incentive to spend the money marketing it and building a sexy interface on top of it. There is money in interface.
BTW, a paypal competitor IS interesting! It's a 10bn+ market. but dwolla could be the "bank". it could be the secured storage. ....
note: andreesen has also invested in ripple/opencoin. reminds me of their simultaneous bets on dalton cadwell (immeem)'s picplz, and instagram.
Andreessen Horowitz just put a lot of money into OpenCoin/Ripple, I guarantee you they are going to knit the two services together. Dwolla w/ happy PR buzz, back end provided by OpenCoin.
Dwolla can improve its tech stack and have it be the UX layer on top of Bitcoin if it chooses. I guarantee you there are folks at Dwolla working on this. Dwolla = front end of payment protocol. Dwolla = bank?
Competing payment protocols = Bitcoin; Bank routing/Swift + Forex. There were efforts to abstract gold into a payment protocol in the 90s but they failed.
Bitcoin or one of its numerous derivatives (feathercoin, litecoin, terracoin, ppcoin, ixcoin, novacoin, namecoin, freicoin, "govcoin") will likley win as a payment protocol.
The bitcoin investors have zero incentive to spend the money marketing it and building a sexy interface on top of it. There is money in interface.
BTW, a paypal competitor IS interesting! It's a 10bn+ market. but dwolla could be the "bank". it could be the secured storage. ....
note: andreesen has also invested in ripple/opencoin. reminds me of their simultaneous bets on dalton cadwell (immeem)'s picplz, and instagram.