BitPay is an easy-to-use platform enabling internet businesses to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. BitPay provides a plugin and makes it easy for all companies that have a website with any of the common web-publishing platforms to accept Bitcoins. 

According to Gallipi, with whom Wamda caught up at Webit Istanbul, Bitcoin offers significant opportunities for both consumers and developers in emerging markets, despite the fact that it is “so small and so new” compared to major credit card companies. He describes Bitcoin as “an open source payment network, enabling anyone to use it or develop applications on top of it,” potentially leading to a huge number of different ways of exchange and payment.

Regarding the challenges BitPay is facing, he claims that Bitcoin is in a very early stage; developers are still trying to make it more usable and scalable for every kind of business. From such a perspective, Gallipi likens the adoption process of Bitcoin to e-mail: “It started in the 1980s when companies first adopted e-mail, and eventually it got into the home as more consumer products were built for it.”

Gallipi claims that eventually Bitcoin will be able to compete with major credit card companies. Currently, he claims, the biggest problem seems to be the relatively low number of participants: “A single person trying to buy a million dollars can move the market around. But as the participants will increase, the volatility will decrease and it will reach a level of stability.”

The strength of Bitcoin, Gallipi says, is that it's run and managed entirely by the people, without a central governing agency. He foresees that Bitcoin is the first wave, and adds that “certainly there is a bright future for virtual currencies in general.” Bitcoin, or any other type of virtual currency for that matter, enables business that conducts transactions over the internet to reach customers at little or no cost, which will save them valuable money, time, and resources.