To most people in the US, it’s still not obvious why Bitcoin matters. Some believe in the blockchain and not Bitcoin. Others are now familiar with companies like Coinbase and Circle that have raised lots of capital from well-known VCs and financial institutions. But most consumers in the US still don’t know why they should use Bitcoin other than to speculate on the digital currency.

Over the past year as the media buzz around Bitcoin has cooled off, a group of apps that enable behaviors that weren’t possible before Bitcoin have emerged. These are the applications that are likely to become the obvious reasons why Bitcoin is useful to people:

Global peer-to-peer lending

Popular p2p lending services like Lending Club and Prosper aren’t accessible to a global user base because they are built on top of fragmented payment infrastructure and it’s time consuming and expensive for them to expand to many different counties. This opens up an opportunity for Bitcoin-first p2p lending services to emerge. BTCJam, Bitbond, and BitLendingClub are three services that allow users from around the world to access the capital markets. If you’re a farmer in Kenya you can now get a loan from anyone in the world. And if you’re an individual in the US that wants to lend to different types of people around the world, Bitcoin-enabled p2p lenders now enable that.

Micropayments

Micropayments has been one of the great promises of the Internet dating back to the late 90s, when services like Beenz and Flooz raised millions of dollars to build closed-loop systems around micropayments. All attempts have ultimately failed up until recently, when in-app purchases on iOS have started to emerge. On a smaller scale, bitcoin-enabled micropayments companies have also emerged over the past year. The open, interoperable nature of Bitcoin makes it the ideal platform for innovation in micropayments and services like ChangeTip, Zapchain, and Lawnmower are leading the way.

Cross-border payments

Historically, there has been limited competition in the international money transfer market, which has led to exorbitant fees for consumers. The distributed, p2p nature of bitcoin brings competition to a market that has never had it before, which dramatically reduces the fees associated with transferring money across borders. Companies built on Bitcoin like Abra, Coins.ph, and BitPesa allow consumers to transfer value cheaper and faster than ever before and there will be lots of innovation to come here.

These are the apps built on Bitcoin that have quietly gained the most traction over the past year. I believe we’re still in the early days of the “Bitcoin application layer” and am sure that many more companies in these segments and new segments will emerge over the coming years. While its not obvious to people now, in the long-run the permission-less innovation that Bitcoin enables will ultimately improve the lives of billions of people. And despite all the blockchain hype right now, I believe that payment focused apps will be the first companies to impact the world at a large scale.

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