The ultimate goal for Bitcoiners has been “mainstream” or “mass” adoption of bitcoin: we want everyone using bitcoin on a daily basis whether they know it or not, where bitcoin is as ubiquitous and invisible as the internet itself. The gap between where the technology is today and where it needs to be to achieve this goal is still wide, but with the Abra mobile wallet we’re hoping to help incrementally close the gap as more people begin to use Abra for p2p mobile payments.

Bitcoiners can now send bitcoin to pay people without having to explain bitcoin: just ask the recipient to send a payment request using the Abra wallet, and the conversion from bitcoin to fiat will happen on-the-fly. After the transaction is sent, the money will show up in the recipient’s wallet as their local currency. They won’t even know the sender sent them bitcoin. Recipients can then cash out their wallet balance to their bank account in any of our supported countries or find an Abra Teller nearby if they need or prefer to withdraw physical cash.

This is what bitcoin for the mainstream looks like: friendly, familiar, convenient.

The transaction works the same in the reverse: if a recipient needs or prefers to receive a payment in bitcoin, but the sender prefers to deal in fiat currency, the sender can add money to their Abra wallet using their bank account or a local Abra Teller and then send their fiat currency directly to the recipient’s bitcoin address, even if the recipient does not have an Abra wallet.

Want to get your friends and family to use bitcoin without them even knowing it? If they are located in a country where we have bank integrations, or a city with Abra Tellers, ask them to try Abra next time you need to send money to them and let us know how it goes!