Every US bill in circulation has the words “In God We Trust” printed on them. In reality, when it comes to our money, it’s not just God that needs to be trusted, but collectively trust in all institutions, government and corporations. Has Main Streets trust of Wall Street been any lower? For some people there’s a growing acceptance of “In Math We Trust.” This trust is translating into a willingness to consider the alternatives like Bitcoin and other forms of digital money.
Bitcoin operates as peer-to-peer technology, but isn’t part of any central authority or traditional banking entity. Many individuals and businesses are starting to accept Bitcoins as payment for goods and services, so it’s fair to call this a new form of currency. The fact that cryptography – which is defined as the art of writing or solving codes – is creating and managing this money is also generating doubt and ridicule around it’s legitimacy. The idea that an individual owns and controls their money cuts a swath through conventional monetary thinking. Mainstream – and Main St. – it’s not, but it’s growing number of fervent early adopters.
Yurii Rashkovskii and Jesse Heaslip, co-founders of Vancouver-based Bex.io, are banking on its platform to be the first choice for anyone considering operating a digital money exchange. With over 60 exchanges currently in existence around the world, Heaslip admits he’s wasn’t an instant convert to the whole Bitcoin idea. His first reaction was “take off the tin hat, and get back to the real party.” Over the past year, Heaslip has seen the community quickly evolve from the “libertarian types not inclined to leave their homes or cabins and never shave their beards, to now include a growing number extremely talented developers and motivated business people who have their eyes looking towards the next ten years.”
While the fast changing community is influencing his business decision, Heaslip acknowledges that having Rashkovskii as a co-founder has him going “all in”. Rashkovskii has a keen understanding of the Bitcoin economy. Combining market knowledge with his technical acumen for security and complex back-end systems it adds up to the Bex.io team plunging into this seemingly “Wild, Wild West” of cyrpto-currency. Remember, people also scoffed at the notion of spending real money on virtual items as gifts for their Facebook friends, too.
Bex.io currently has a team of six and the platform’s first exchange is going live at the end of the month. In an interview with BetaKit, Bex.io let us know that the company has a goal to ensure its digital money exchange is “Fort Knox” secure and fast, plus has the vision of becoming “a global, world-wide liquidity pool for digital currencies.”
Bex.io is a white label SaaS solution, not designed to be sexy or to look pretty. The revenue model is based on both license fees being generated on the size and scope of deployment, and commission fees based on a percentage of exchange revenue in relation to transaction volume. Rashkovskii has dubbed Bex.io as “operation proliferation” which supports his vision of seeing Bitcoin and other forms of digital money become fully accepted means of completing transactions on Main St.
It’s hard to have a conversation with Rashkovskii and Heaslip about their business without having a long conversation about the future of money. Rashkovskii says “there’s a difference between currency and money,” he stated. He sees Bitcoin as money, but there’s no shortage of naysayers about BitCoin’s future. For instance Bloomberg recently published this pending doom story, while competing publication BusinessWeek ran an article suggesting Bitcoin could be the Global economy’s last safe haven. This story is just starting, and the founders of Bex.io are determined to be at the center of it all.