Crypto Legend Diana Biggs: The future of Bitcoin and blockchain

The Legend: Financial Inclusivity

Diana’s revolutionary proclivities predate cryptocurrency itself, starting with an interest in hackers and cyberpunks. “We used to go to 2600 meetups [and explore] the technology…Back then, the narrative was really around ‘Information wants to be free’ and ‘How can we use this technology to empower people?’”Then, in the spring of 2013, Diana crashed at her brothers, a computer programmer and a constant hacker convention companion and influence. He spilled the beans about Bitcoin, and Diana immediately latched onto the message. For the hacker and cyberpunk movement, “ bitcoin had the same energy,” of freedom of information and technological empowerment “that really resonated with me,” although the focus was “more around financial freedom.”But the cryptocurrency stars weren’t simply aligning with her hobbyist interests. From 2012 to 2014, Diana worked on various projects in Africa centered on micro-finance and financial inclusivity. She connected the message of freedom with financial inclusivity, as did many others.

The Myth: Web 2 is archaic

From then to now, Diana’s seen many compelling use cases rise and fall. Many cut close to the grain of the message of transparency and financial freedom introduced by Bitcoin. But again and again and again: the so-called solutions took the so-called problems for granted. That is, they assume all costs are down to inefficiencies and all (Web 2) institutions are broken.In other words, startups have often been ‘starting up’ without first actually taking measurements of the economics they seek to challenge. Instead, Diana believes, challengers should put on the thinking hat of firms’ approaches to digital transformation cases. For example, institutional banks’ approach to open banking. The transformation took three to four years, yes, but not without rhyme or reason. Instead, the time taken had more to do with a serious evaluation of all incentives: for example, “are there enough to justify a pivot?"

The Future: finding equilibrium with legacy systems

Dianna keenly championed crypto’s novel aspirations for financial inclusivity and opportunities with a nonetheless tempered critique: not every cost is arbitrary and not every legacy system is inefficient. For example, in 2015-2016, “many startups where looking at the remittance use case [motivated by] the narrative [of] cheaper, more efficient rails.” she said. But very quickly, a fatal lesson was learned - the costs were coming from somewhere.”[A]round the world, … the average spend is [about] 6% in fees. Actually you have super highly efficient corridors like between India and the US, Mexico, Philippines, where fees are incredibly low because they're … companies…like Western Unions, they have that corridor [which] is really efficient. They're able to balance out the pools of money on either side there, and they're also making up for those costs in order to be competitive by some of these corridors that are much more expensive.”

Fiat Republic: Innovating without encumbering

Here at Fiat Republic, we believe that blockchain innovation has lots to offer legacy business and infrastructure’. However, we wish to forward innovation, not encumbrances. In the case of fiat rails and banking, for example, traditional partnerships and operations are overlooked, either because platforms seek to ‘go their own way’ or because, on the other side, traditional rails and banks don’t trust - or understand - vanguard platforms.Not everything can be disrupted. Sometimes solutions - technological and business alike - require finesse. That’s the service Fiat Republic’s all-in one API aggregator provides. We’re optimising cost, compliance, and above all, market trust and business credibility. You can read more about how all this works in our Fiat Strategy ebook here.

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