Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Nobody asks which database
A rail, not a choice
People want a phone to work when they turn it on. They aren't picking the radio frequency their Wi-Fi uses or the chip inside, though 25 years ago a new chip number felt like a big deal. Blockchain will become the same kind of detail at society-wide scale.
Division of labor
Most people still want intermediaries, and there is a division of labor. A retail person can hold tokenized gold directly, but institutions already have the relationships with billions of customers, and new companies will serve everyone who hasn't been served.
Paxos in the stack
So Paxos builds the base layer for companies like PayPal and Stripe, which concentrate on creating great user experiences. It provides a very reliable, regulated, secure way to do that and doesn't compete with them for customers.
How did internet protocols become invisible?
On January 1, 1983, the ARPANET switched from its older protocol to TCP/IP, a date engineers called flag day. The protocols let any network exchange data with any other, regardless of hardware. Over the following decades they sank below what users see, and almost no one chooses a protocol when opening a webpage. The web itself was proposed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN in 1989 and ran on top of them.
Why did Intel Inside make chips visible?
Intel launched its Intel Inside campaign in 1991, helping computer makers pay for ads that carried its logo. Before that, almost no buyer asked what processor sat inside a PC. The Pentium name, introduced in 1993, gave the brand a product name ordinary shoppers could remember.
How do apps like PayPal sit on payment networks?
Consumer payment apps typically sit on top of existing networks such as card networks and the Automated Clearing House, which moves most US bank-to-bank transfers. The ACH network has operated since the 1970s and is governed by rules from Nacha. The apps handle the interface, fraud checks, and customer support, while the underlying networks move the money. The card network now called Visa began in 1958 as Bank of America's BankAmericard.
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