Technological innovations that make it easier and faster for people to interact directly have spurred some of the largest periods of economic growth in recent memory.

Consumers have benefited greatly from new products and services that have lowered costs and made lives better. Email drastically sped up and increased communications between people. Ride-sharing services connect drivers to riders faster and more cheaply. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, quickly connect students with professors across the country. The common thread between all of these tools is that they connect peers directly, while also providing entrepreneurs with the tools to control and improve their lives.

Finance is not a place where innovation is always thought of as a good thing. In fact, after the financial crisis, the prevailing wisdom was that most financial innovations, like derivatives, were dangerous. In the last few years, however, Bitcoin has proved to be a financial platform that follows in the tradition of the Internet, empowering people to interact directly with each other, while providing a platform for entrepreneurs to innovate.

For example, in the same way that simple message text protocol, or S.M.T.P., allows messages to be sent and received globally for a fraction of the cost of a stamp, Bitcoin allows for — among other things — value transfer to occur in the same seamless manner. Think of it as digital cash or the “email for money.”