10 Dec 2013 / CNET – PARIS — Online payments will look completely different in the next decade, and Bitcoin has a better chance at revolutionizing commerce than the NFC tap-to-pay technology, PayPal President David Marcus predicted Tuesday.
“I really like Bitcoin. I own bitcoins,” Marcus said at the LeWeb conference here. However, he believes people today don’t correctly understand what bitcoins actually are, and he’s not yet ready to let people link their bitcoin wallets with their PayPal accounts.
People are confused. They think because it’s called cryptocurrency it’s a currency. I don’t think it is a currency. It’s a store of value, a distributed ledger. It’s a great place to put assets, especially in places like Argentina with 40 percent inflation, where $1 today is worth 60 cents in a year, and a government’s currency does not hold value. It’s also a good investment vehicle if you have an appetite for risk. But it won’t be a currency until volatility slows down. Whenever the regulatory framework is clearer, and the volatility comes down, then we’ll consider it.
Also, bitcoins aren’t widely enough accepted by merchants yet, Marcus added….. Read more
