BitConnect Connects With Bitcoin Startup Cashaa - Can They Disrupt LocalBitcoins?
New and innovative services are popping up all the time in the digital currency space and today marks the launch of Cashaa, a new blockchain-based p2p marketplace. Cashaa markets themselves as a new service enabling zero-fee cash transfers. Based out of London by Kumar Gaurav, Cashaa does not charge the cash sender and receiver any fees, Cashaa does not require them to have a bank account or mobile wallet and transactions are conducted at a real-time exchange rate.
BitConnect sat down with Mr. Guarev to get the details on just how disruptive this new service can be.
What spurred you to create this service? What is the true genesis of Cashaa?/How did you get started in Bitcoin or digital currency services?
"During my management studies, I traveled and met a lot of interesting people worldwide, and also had to use Western Union. I was wondering why companies would charge so much for something as simple as exchanging money. Losing 10-12% of the money was annoying, and so was the thought that there are people who with honest work make less money than Western Union, which does not create anything itself, but only exploits its customers."
“In the same time in 2014, I met cryptocurrency traders and got involved in Bitcoin and blockchain. Bringing this together with my experiences, the idea for Cashaa was born. I decided to focus on the cash transfer market, as it is less serviced than bank-to-bank transfers, and people are paying these crazy fees plus exchange rate fees, and technology had not helped in this situation yet. Therefore, I started Cashaa.”
This sounds a lot like LocalBitcoins.com concept, except the goal is to send money overseas, not with the goal of buying and selling BTC. Is that fair that they are similar in design? Can you perform these trades online, or only in person?
Unlike LocalBitcoins, we are marketplace matching cash senders with any cryptocurrency traders. It can disrupt LocalBitcoins and cash exchanges at the same time. Now traders can find a trade without the physical presence of their counterpart in the same location. We are opening a global market for the crypto-traders and using the liquidity from cash remittance industry to connect the local bitcoiners in different countries.
Until now, we have seen that bitcoin or cryptocurrency is being utilized by a very limited section of society with a sole purpose of speculation. But now, with Cashaa, people can send money to their friends and family without any cost without involving in bitcoin and leaving it to the traders who are speculating it on LocalBitcoins or an exchange. Even more, than this, it will help to educate more people outside of the crypto- currency industry by giving them a use case which is touching their day-to-day life.
Cashaa works as follows: The cash sender sends a request, including how much money they want to have delivered, in which city, and which currency, to whom and in which time. We send a notification to all traders in the sender and the receiver`s city, who then can make their bid to pick up and deliver cash for selling and buying cryptocurrency. Once a match is found, the money sender and receiver are each meeting the individual trader in person, in a public place, in their city. Our current product is for cash in and cashes out.
“We wanted to serve the most unserved section of the society, which is Western Union customers sending money that are still paying the very high fee. Cashaa is for them, and in future versions, our users will able to send and receive money through bank accounts, credit cards, as many other payment options.”
So if there are really no fees on trades, how does Cashaa make money?
“Whereas Cashaa is not charging the cash sender and receiver, we are making money through the traders. Traders through us get an increase in market size and a higher profit margin, compared to their local market. We don't charge any fixed fee like LocalBitcoins or exchanges. Our traders are free to choose their bid and ask price depending on their local market, and we keep anything left between them.”
I understand this does not support altcoins, currently. Can you explain how that will be implemented in the future?
The decision to come up with the only bitcoin was due to our test results and market size. In April 2016, for testing purposes, we launched a trading platform called Btc2Bid, which was Bitcoin-only. During testing, we had more than 10,000 traders sign up from 126 countries, who transferred about $2 million USD without us even having to spend anything on marketing.
Cashaa will first be launched using this network of Bitcoin traders, but we are cryptocurrency/token-agnostic. We are building an internal InterLedger. So, for example, the trader on one side can be a Bitcoin trader, and the trader on the other side can be an altcoin trade. Therefore, we invite traders of any cryptocurrency to join us.
The year is now 2020. Where is Bitcoin in the world of finance and where is Cashaa in the world of Bitcoin?
“In 2020, Bitcoin will break all the rumor and negativity made around it and will establish itself into consumer space. Many killer Apps will launch which will help to deliver the advantage of Bitcoin and Blockchain to average consumers. As an asset Bitcoin has proven many times that it rise more sharply when political and economic issues have grown, which I think will bring more institutional investors into the domain to balance their portfolio. “
Cashaa is one of the service builds on bitcoins and cryptocurrency connect the average and advanced consumers. Cashaa aim will be to develop a decentralized escrow system, exchange and serve as many as countries we can to build a win-win ecosystem for everyone.
Author Evander Smarat
@originalworks