BitPay Integrates with DriveWealth to Attract Millenial Investors
BitPay, the world’s largest payment processor, announced this past Thursday that they had opted to integrate with DriveWealth , a mobile investment platform that is available around the world. With the inking of this deal, DriveWealth becomes the first financial services company to allow users to fund their accounts using bitcoin.
Bitcoin’s borderless and growing international appeal will make it easier for DriveWealth’s customers around the world to be able to fund their accounts. DriveWealth’s Bitcoin integration promises to become the fastest way of funding accounts when compared against other available methods. The DriveWealth business model promises to make the whole process of investing easier for the relatively untapped millennial generation.
The Millenials – The Emerging Demographic
The millennial generation comprises those who were born between 1982 – 2000. They have grown up in a world that has seen the internet move into the mainstream, and are therefore much more willing to use new technology. In a survey of attitudes across the four generations, the Silents, the Baby Boomers, Generation X and the Millenials, it was discovered that the attitudes of the Millenials were significantly different from that of the earlier generations. Whereas Generation X was considered to be cautious and conservative about money with a focus on saving as much as possible, Millenials felt that they were earning in order to spend.
For Millenials, some of the biggest values include personal freedom and the cultivation of a global perspective on things. They are also the most tech savvy of generations. It is not hard to see why Millenials would take up the use of bitcoin faster than everyone else. It would also not be such a stretch to see how an investment product, such as is promised by BitPay and DriveWealth, would be able to capture their imagination, and prod them to participate in saving – one of the relatively harder things to do for Millenials.
Cryptocurrency and Investment
BitPay’s integration with DriveWealth will be pioneering a new function for bitcoin in the investment industry and also pushing financial institutions to adopt the cryptocurrency. Utilizing bitcoin to make investments offers more security than traditional payment methods, giving users more control over their accounts. Using bitcoin as a funding method does not require sensitive data to be transmitted, so that users will not need to worry about fraud or identity theft.
“Providing users with the added security of bitcoin as a payment method makes the whole process easier and gives users peace of mind,” says Tony Gallippi, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of BitPay. “With Bitcoin, users will no longer have to wait days or weeks for an account to be funded because this integration will make their deposit process seamless.”
“In our busy mobile world, investors want easy access to financial markets with secure payment options,” says Robert Cortright, Founder and CEO of DriveWealth. “With BitPay, they don’t have to worry about their financial information being compromised.”
However, the security measures taken by individual companies may not be enough. It is the hope of this writer that a commonsense legal framework will emerge to anchor all of the innovation that cryptocurrency promises to unleash on humanity. In addition to the BitPay and DriveWealth deal there are also other projects that are working on bringing the derivatives segment to bitcoin. Other startups are working on how to lend through the blockchain, and the future promises many more concepts as yet conceived. Global legal systems will have to be both robust and agile enough so as to keep in lockstep with the emerging challenges.
The question that begs is, will they?
Images from BitPay and Shutterstock.
