[if_by_whisky]

There's a growing interest in the underlying technology's implications for fintech. I think largely because transactions can be ultra fast, ultra cheap, and can execute auditable, but arbitrary custom logic. ACH is extremely old, very slow, inflexible, and still used across the world for large financial transactions.

[runeks]

> I think largely because transactions can be ultra fast, ultra cheap, and can execute auditable, but arbitrary custom logic.

Blockchains are neither fast nor cheap; their value is trustlessness, not performance. The SWIFT network handled 15 million transfers per day in 2015 [1], Bitcoin's current maximum is around 600k per day/~7 transactions per second. That being said, the Bitcoin-limit is self-imposed (1MB per block), but even so the security of the network weakens as storage requirements for nodes increase, so some limit is required, in my opinion.

The value of crypto currencies is in the decentralized/trustless medium of exchange. I think, in the end, we will use various clearing protocols on top of Bitcoin, in order to circumvent the slow on-Blockchain settlement (just like VISA handles consumer-to-merchant transactions instead of SWIFT). It's very much like gold: perfect as a store of value, but relatively cumbersome to transfer from person to person.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...

[if_by_whisky]

Your view reflects that of most of the bitcoin community. And it's true that the promise of trustless, decentralized transactions certainly got the price of bitcoin to where it is now-- but I think there's something more for fintech in crypto than digital gold.

At least, that hope is why I myself dabble. I also think it's why there's so much enterprise investment in ethereum.

[tankenmate]

I think you might be thinking of SWIFT for international transactions. As far as I was aware ACH is only used in the US.