Blockchain is still WAY too hard for most — that’s why Wyre is important

Most people paying attention understand that blockchain, especially with the advent of smart contracts, are ushering in a new era of the same magnitude of what we experienced with the Internet.

But at the same time — anyone who is paying attention and understands it has also spent a lot of time explaining it to other people because it’s complicated. From the hash, to the nonce, to the block, to why decentralization is so valuable, to byzantine fault tolerance, to non-repudiation, and so on — there’s a lot. This YouTube video is very helpful for 101 level discussion.

So while some companies like AuthenticID are focused on helping trust and security on the blockchain — which is going to fill a big hole for industries like financial services and healthcare. There have been a number of blogs about that subject on this site recently.

What’s going to happen is that adoption will continue at a certain pace for many applications — which is slow but still good. The other thing that is going to happen — is the companies are going to figure out how to simplify blockchain for specific use cases (where people don’t care about blockchain but want its benefits) and that’s going to put adoption in those areas at comparative warp speed.

Wyre is one such company. It’s no secret that wire transfers are slow and expensive when you are moving money between countries or currencies. Wyre is very fast and inexpensive compared to traditional models. That’s what their customers really care about.

Do they use blockchain for this? Yes

Do they support transfer of cryptocurrencies for this? Yes

Do they include countries like China for transfers? Yes

Do they support Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Requirements? I think so. It’s not as obvious from their web site but I am pretty sure they are doing that, and it might not yet be as fast as it can be with a service like AuthenticID — because it’s faster and cheaper than the alternative — their customers don’t really care. And they shouldn’t.

This is a watershed moment for the blockchain because smart companies are figuring out that people want to accomplish some outcomes without caring about how they get done — known as the “how trap” to regular readers of this blog. Getting out of the how trap is crucial for a lot of the long term success in the blockchain and it’s great to see a company like WYRE leading the way.