Out in the Open: Cyberpunk Builds Bitcoin Wallet That Even Apple Can’t Ban
Kyle Drake calls himself a professional cyberpunk. He spends his days on the net, writing computer code and trying to stick it to the man. His latest target: the global banking industry.
But he’s not aiming to take down the financial sector with some sort of illegal hack attack. He wants to beat them at their own game with a little help from the world’s most popular digital currency, Bitcoin — a burgeoning system that runs on thousands of servers across the globe without answering to any central authority. “I think Bitcoin is the most important thing I’m going to work on in my life,” Drake says.
His current project is Coinpunk, an open source Bitcoin wallet that he believes will help free the world from both big banks and powerful payment processors like MasterCard and Visa.
Typically, when you pay for stuff, you have to put your trust in an awful lot of people. If you use a debit card to buy breakfast at IHOP, you have trust that IHOP won’t misuse your card. At another level, you have to trust a payment processor like Visa and the bank that holds your money. And they often charge merchants exorbitant fees to handle the process.
Kyle Drake calls himself a professional cyberpunk. He spends his days on the net, writing computer code and trying to stick it to the man. His latest target: the global banking industry.
But he’s not aiming to take down the financial sector with some sort of illegal hack attack. He wants to beat them at their own game with a little help from the world’s most popular digital currency, Bitcoin — a burgeoning system that runs on thousands of servers across the globe without answering to any central authority. “I think Bitcoin is the most important thing I’m going to work on in my life,” Drake says.
His current project is Coinpunk, an open source Bitcoin wallet that he believes will help free the world from both big banks and powerful payment processors like MasterCard and Visa.
Typically, when you pay for stuff, you have to put your trust in an awful lot of people. If you use a debit card to buy breakfast at IHOP, you have trust that IHOP won’t misuse your card. At another level, you have to trust a payment processor like Visa and the bank that holds your money. And they often charge merchants exorbitant fees to handle the process.