The Battle for Mobile Cash: An Interview with Bill Barhydt, CEO of Abra
With the current onslaught of bitcoin-related applications and services it's an interesting time to be a part of the greater digital currency community. The blockchain possesses a seemingly infinite number of use cases, and those who can think creatively and be the first movers in a certain sector are pioneering some of the those brilliant ideas into our....
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Bill Barhydt talks fast, often in big, sweeping terms that pass with the frequency of mile markers. "We are basically preparing Abra to go global as quickly as possible," he says in interview. On the phone with CoinDesk, Barhydt even sounds as if he’s flying through space and time, the wind rushing around him audibly as we kick off a conversation about Abra, the peer-to-peer "digital cash" startup for which he has served as CEO since 2014. While Barhydt exudes velocity, the language he employs seem a far cry from his startups muted public presence. While the company has....
Bill Barhydt, serial entrepreneur and former Netscape director, debuted his first Bitcoin startup, Abra, on Wednesday, March 4. The announcement came on the last day of the Launch Festival, an annual conference known for premiering new and innovative startups. In his speech, Barhydt explained that Abra was created to help migrant workers in various countries send money to their loved ones back home. “Our mission with Abra is to turn every smartphone into a teller that processes withdrawals. This is not just another bitcoin app. The wallet is a full-fledged digital asset management system,....
Everything has gone mobile these days, thanks to the ubiquitous mobile phones. Everyone has one, and anyone can afford one. There are over 3.5 billion mobile subscribers across the globe, half of which are smartphones. According to "The Mobile Economy 2014" report by GSMA, at least 2.2 billion users access the internet using their phones (2013). Now armed with this data, we can easily deduce how stiff the competition is in the mobile phone and applications sector. The same holds good for bitcoin apps too. There are so many bitcoin apps currently available in the market, out of which two of....
Bill Barhydt, the entrepreneur and former Netscape director who is credited with giving the first TED Talk on bitcoin, has debuted a bitcoin venture called Abra. The announcement, which came on the final day of Launch Festival 2015, ends seven months of silence for the stealth project. Barhydt previously founded mobile banking startup Boom Financial, which raised $17m in 2012, and WebSentric, one of the first online meeting services. Speaking at the event, Barhydt explained that the goal of Abra is to attack the $550bn global remittance market by reducing its associated fees. For ease of....
Abra is gearing up to release its bitcoin-powered remittance app in the next few weeks, pending final approval from the Apple App Store. The company, which recently closed a $12m Series A funding round, has announced its remittance app will be first available to customers in the US and the Philippines, with other countries in the pipeline over the weeks and months ahead. Today, Abra also unveiled two previously undisclosed investors in its funding round: American Express, by way of its venture arm American Express Ventures, and Ratan Tata, a well-known Indian business magnate.....