75 Quotes by Taavet Hinrikus

People bought bitcoin because they thought it would be worth more tomorrow. And a lot of people got lucky. But we're not seeing real people use bitcoin. And we don't know what problem it solves. Now, blockchain, I think, is a genius advancement in technology.

Most banks tell their customers that they only pay a small upfront fee for international payments. But in reality, customers pay much more.

Creating a new country from scratch has given Estonia the license to imagine what a country could be.

I spent my workdays at Skype creating a more connected world. We were shrinking the distances between people, making it easier to connect across countries. Then I'd go to my bank to transfer my euros to pounds, and it was like going back in time 50 years: expensive, inconvenient, and painfully slow. It was a nightmare.

The U.S.A. is a huge market which has a large immigrant population from Europe, India, from all around the world; lots of them have, still, strong ties to home, so move lots of money.

Scaling a business at speed can feel like an out of control roller-coaster.

Competition and variety in financial services are always good things.

The banks never sent me one chequebook. I'm very happy not to have ever touched one.

'Big' problems are overwhelming, but when we distil them down to their simplest forms, then the solutions become simple, too.