We Believe in Bitcoin

Bitcoin has had a rough week. On the heels of downward movement in price, the third largest Bitcoin exchange, Bitstamp, was hacked for nearly 19,000 Bitcoin.

While both of these events impact people in the Bitcoin community in different ways, none of them got our team down more than a quote in an article about the Gliph Marketplace published yesterday.

In an article titled, Gliph Uses In-App Messaging, Bitcoin to Take On Craigslist, a quote was used that suggested the only reason we have been focused on Bitcoin is because investors like it. This quote was at best taken of the context it was used and simply can not be further from the truth. We’ve asked for it to be retracted.

Gliph’s roots are in protecting the privacy and communications of its users. We reached the idea of integrating Bitcoin because it provides private, secure and frictionless payments. We came to this conclusion long before Apple Pay existed and before the first dollar of investment from Bitcoin supporters went into the company.

We built Gliph Marketplace to specifically leverage Bitcoin, and believe that the global impact of having a great way to perform P2P transactions using the currency will be large. We believe this is particularly true in countries like the Philippines, where many people are unbanked or do not have access to traditional payment systems.

We also acknowledge that the Bitcoin currency is still in the early adopter days, and in some regions may not be as popular for general transactions as quickly as other digital payment methods.

For example, in the United States, Apple Pay has significant adoption advantages over Bitcoin. It has major retailers accepting it, along with direct integration into popular Apple products using Touch ID. As a result, Apple Pay is likely to gain traction in regular transactions more quickly than Bitcoin.

But Apple Pay’s potential does not minimize our belief in Bitcoin. We believe in Bitcoin. Not as a way to gain investment, but as something that is important to the world. We believe it will impact many lives and help rebalance global financial systems. We believe our products can make it easier to use and more common way to perform Bitcoin-based transactions.

Gliph’s CEO and co-founder has spoken out about the promise of Bitcoin and its impact regularly. Here are few videos that better express how and why we believe in Bitcoin:

Finally, given how early Bitcoin is, we believe Bitcoin users, builders and supporters are courageous and intrepid. We appreciate all of our Bitcoin users who have taken the time to try Gliph and provide feedback on how it can be improved.

We’ll keep listening and enthusiastically advocating for Bitcoin.