New Features of Abra Mobile App Could Enormously Boost Value of Bitcoin (BTC)

On the 6th of February, Abra made a very strategic announcement that could positively impact the value of Bitcoin (BTC). According to the announcement, the users of Abra mobile app can now gain exposure to a wide range of commodities, traditional stocks, and exchange-traded funds through the app.

Initially, users were only allowed to receive, send and hold a wide range of digital and fiat currencies via the mobile application. While this might be perceived as another entry in the highly populated mobile finance market, Abra has what it takes to have a significant impact in terms of the Permissionless, global availability of traditional investment opportunities.

Furthermore, for the fact that the firm is built on smart contracts based on Bitcoin, it could have a significant impact on the future value of Bitcoin (BTC).

About Abra

Abra was founded in 2014 by Bill Barhydt – the former director of Netscape, and the firm took home the grand prize at the 2015 Launch Festival. The scope of the firm at that time was as a kind of limitless, global alternative to Venmo where international settlements could bank immediately at low cost.

The global availability of the firm is made feasible via the use of “digital currency collateralized contracts” that lets users hold funds on their mobile phones. This doesn’t function like a bank or PayPal where the fund is held by a third-party and users just see numbers associated with their account balance in the application.

The crypto collateralized contracts of the firm was built on the blockchain of Bitcoin. They created a 2-of-3 multi-signature Bitcoin (BTC) address. Transactions from that address can only be signed by three parties. The three parties that can sign the transaction are the user, Abra, and a third-party Oracle that sets the conversion rate between Bitcoin (BTC) and whichever asset the user wants to exchange Bitcoin (BTC) with.

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Today – BTC / USD

NamePrice24H %
bitcoin
Bitcoin(BTC)
$0.00-0.15%

When users exchange their Bitcoin (BTC) into USD or other digital assets, they are creating one of these multi-signature addresses. However, all of these are not known to the users of the app. They are not aware of the fact that they are holding BTC in a smart contract instead of the real assets they have in their portfolio (except they read the fine print}.

With this setup, it is obvious to see that Abra isn’t a custodian of funds. This allows the firm to avoid a variety of onerous regulations and make their services available in 155 countries. Users are also given the liberty to hold value on their mobile devices in a seizure-proof and censorship manner – similar to Bitcoin (BTC).

Can the Value of Bitcoin (BTC) Be Impacted by Abra?

Since the mobile app of Abra is built on the blockchain of Bitcoin, it could have a significant effect on the value of the digital currency. The reason is that the amount of BTC held up in the crypto collateralized contracts of Abra must be equivalent to the value of assets held on the phones of users. Although a wide range of use cases have been touted by digital currencies over the past years, the major use case with the most significant impact on the values of these digital currencies is HODLing.

Automatically, all the users of Abra are Bitcoin (BTC) HODLers, even though they are just exposed to the fluctuation of prices of the assets in their portfolio.

Princess Ogono is a writer, lawyer and fitness enthusiast. She believes cryptocurrencies are the future. When she's not writing, she spends time with her adorable cat, Ginger and works out often.

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