NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 4, 2015

From having founded the pioneering digital publishing platform CNET, selling it for $1.8 billion to CBS and filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy subsequently, Halsey Minor — an American serial tech entrepreneur from the 1990s dotcom boom era — has seen it all. His next big bet is digital finance, which he describes as the “last frontier of internet”, with all other consumer-facing segments having been already tapped.

Between 1993 to about 2005, Minor built or invested in a slew of tech companies like Vignette, Salesforce, Rhapsody, Open DNS and GrandCentral, and is now back with a new venture — Bitreserve, a bitcoin-wallet service, which he wants to bring to India.

Calling it the internet of money, Minor, who was in India recently to meet regulators, says banking is the last bastion that will get disrupted by technology. “After the US, UK and China, we want to now set up operations in India and we are talking to regulators and potential partners on a range of our internet-based finance offerings,” he told TOI. He believes his brand will be operational in India before it takes off in the US.

While bitcoin introduced the notion of cloud-based value and real-time transparency, Bitreserve delivers on the bitcoin’s promise of a better financial system, explains the 49-year-old. This puts consumers and businesses in direct control of their money, he adds. He wants to offer Bitreserve as a financial inclusion productwhich can be used for money transfers.