There’s been a change on the conference scene lately. Where there used to be a new Bitcoin conference popping up at every turn, now blockchain conferences have become more frequent and popular. This last blockchain conference held in San Francisco drew attendance from heavy hitters Intel, Microsoft and IBM.

According to Aldo Carrascoso, founder and COO of Align Commerce, Inc., people are growing more interested in what kinds of applications are possible with blockchain. He told Jeff Frick, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, that his own company has been successful targeting one specific problem with blockchain: those annoying fees banks charge to transfer funds across borders.

Align Commerce allows people in 60 countries to transfer funds through email and avoid international transfer fees, said Carrascoso.

The blockchain solution

Carrascoso said that companies are interested in very specific use-cases for blockchain.

“The use case that Align Commerce wanted to go after was the cross-border payments use case,” he said, adding that banks make a tremendous amount of money from international transfer fees that hurt small and medium-size businesses. “Essentially, we’re trying to help these small guys play with the big guys by making all payments local,” he said.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of the Blockchain Conference San Francisco 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE