When it comes to bitcoin, the digital currency with the potential to revolutionise global payment networks, banks find themselves in the same position as big newspaper companies 20 years ago when the arrival of the internet suggested the classified rivers of gold could evaporate.

The ultimate success of bitcoin and its blockchain, the network of computers which validates transactions, is by no means guaranteed. But its supporters believe over the longer term, the system may radically transform the movement of money around the world's financial system, stripping banks of their control and creating a future where money morphs beyond central bank-regulated currencies.

The investment by Westpac Banking Corp's venture capital fund Reinventure Group in Coinbase suggests Westpac is intent not to repeat the mistakes of Fairfax Media which failed to make investments in jobs website SEEK and real estate online classified site realestate.com.au (now REA Group) around the turn of the millennium.

Reinventure's investment in Coinbase brings Westpac inside the bitcoin tent. Getty Images

As Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen argued in his book The Innovators Dilemma, it is almost impossible for incumbents to disrupt themselves. For Fairfax, publisher of The Australian Financial Review, its dominance of print classified advertising in the 1990s blinded it from responding aggressively during that decade to the profound technological shifts that saw advertising quickly migrate online.

Given the potential for bitcoin to undermine banks' rivers of payment fees, many have also been reluctant to engage with it. But Reinventure's investment in Coinbase brings Westpac inside the bitcoin tent. It will now receive inside reports on developments in blockchain technology from one of the leading operators in the space, a company that has been leading the charge to legitimise bitcoin by investing in compliance, security and calling for sensible regulation.