Abra might become the first Bitcoin wallet to get a mainstream userbase owing to its unique design. It allows instant conversion of deposited FIAT currency into Bitcoin, all of which are stored locally on the user's device. It manages to avoid various regulatory issues of transferring money cross-borders by being a simple and straightforward technology to use.
Unlike Venmo, Abra never touches any of the funds simplifying sending/receiving payments unlike any of it's predecessors.
Abra received a total of $14m in funding in 2015, and ever since has been continuously developing it's technology to simply peer-to-peer transactions. You can use Abra to hold dollars on your phone in the USA and send RMB to somebody's phone in China. The best part about this is that the money magically shows up on the receivers phone.
Abra CEO Bill Barhydt in a recent podcast with Reason’s Jim Epstein, explained how his bitcoin wallet app makes it easy for anyone to adopt the technology. It hides the blockchain level complexities making it easy for anyone's mother to use it. He went to say how powerful it could be cross-border payments.
Abra app is built on Bitcoin but the company has almost hidden this fact as it feels there is no need for the end consumer to understand all the complex technical details, that traditionally has been forced up Bitcoin users to make transactions. If you are trying to get a new technology mainstream, the underlying complexities can really bogs down the user on-boarding.
According to Barhydt:
With Abra, bitcoin is just another currency, so I can send money from my bitcoin wallet through Abra to somebody who receives dollars, euros, yen, or pesos, and they don’t even know that I sent them bitcoin... We have a lot of people doing that today.
Unlike more traditional payment systems such as Venmo or PayPal, Abra only stores this digital cash on your phone. Therefore, there's no need for any third party to clear these transactions or regulatory authority watchdog to decide a policy for these transactions. It remains completely peer-to-peer, similar to handing cash to your friend but instead of any tangible currency, this all done digitally and doesn't require any face-to-face interaction.
This also means that there is no need for any KYC or ID proof requirements to use this app. Simply download it and set it up and let it work for you.
Barhydt further said:
If you load bitcoin into the Abra app and send bitcoin from here in New York to somebody in Mexico in pesos, there’s no ID required for that because you’re doing a P2P transaction that is effectively the equivalent of taking cash out of your pocket and handing it to the person standing next to you.
It’s just that we use this digital magic to convert it to pesos in between. And if the person on the ground in Mexico went to a teller and just converted that on the ground to paper pesos via a teller transaction there would be no ID required
Barhydt also sees huge growth potential for this app in India, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. It could potentially change the way money is transferred and therefore simplifying lives of millions of users.
You can read their FAQ here as it can answer some very important questions.
In addition to traditional bitcoin users, Barhydt claimed that Abra is currently being used for cross-border money transfers between the United States, the Philippines, and India. Abra is also being tested by some businesses for cross-border payroll.
You can get it from Google Play as well as App Store.
Visit the GoAbra Official Website to learn more about this incredible app and all that it has to offer you.
This is one of the best wallets in the market today that simplifies cross-border transactions, and uses Bitcoin to do it without any shoving any of the complex technical mumbo-jumbo in the user's face. Why should we go to the banks, fill a number of forms, provide ID proof and a ton of other details to send money to a relative overseas? An app like this needs to go mainstream to solve various challenges in crypto adoption rate and mainstream use!
One could easily hire freelancers or overseas contractors for projects and make payments with this app. There are a number of exciting possibilities for commerce and cross-border trade that can be explored with Abra making waves in the mainstream blockchain enabled payment processing space.
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