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Comment by jmiskovic | Hacker News Reader

You might be in a bubble. Article mentions India and Brazil, where people still prefer cash transactions and payment apps are not at all common. Introducing payment service in chat app people already use will blow away competition. I don't like it one bit, but WhatsApp is posed to make big impact on payment system.

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My home country, African country, is in big trouble when it comes to the economy. It is possible to "send" money or goods home. You just head to advertised stores in your resident country and hand your money over. Your relatives at home can go collect money/goods from a store that's part of the network. No systems involved except WhatsApp.

I heard this situation mentioned as big use-case for bitcoin. Is bitcoin actually used to send money back to Africa families?

Also, what is the network you mention? Is this official WhatsApp payment system or some group of stores using WhatsApp as ledger?

The more technical folk would agree with you. I have heard many say this situation is ripe for bitcoin but in practice I have yet to encounter a person using bitcoin in my home country.

Network probably wasn't the most clear word to use. I meant any one of the physical stores in home country that work with the agent in the resident country. My observation is an agent from a specific area in home country will work with the stores from his area in his home country. He or she collects "real" money in the resident country and the shop owners provide the money/goods in home country. All this happens through regular WhatsApp. Not the new money feature.

Thank you for clarifying. I'm not advocating for bitcoin, just fact-checking their (for me the strongest) argument for wider adoption.

Payment apps are very popular in India, especially in urban India. Most people have one of Paytm, Google Pay or PhonePe installed.

But everyone has WhatsApp installed

I agree. I always thought this was the killer function that Whatsapp needed. Now, I think it will be a formidable competitor to everyone else.

Also, I'd like to add the sheer number of people that are on Whatsapp is incredible.

From what I see in my circles. WhatsApp is good for chat but no one doing any serious financial transactions through it.

Financial transactions is mostly dominated by Paytm, GPay etc.

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