Meet Paysendglobal account, a new way to hold, spend and send money in multiple currencies using a mobile app and a card. It looks a lot like Revolutbasic features. But the company is trying to provide a more focused and robust experience from day one.

&We are quite different from both a technical infrastructure and consumer offering viewpoint. We own and control our own processing and this gives tremendous ability and flexibility to deliver a wide variety of services whilst controlling the entire consumer journey,& Head of Product Alex Murashko told me.

&But for me an important distinction is that we have a different approach to designing the product. We believe in simplifying the consumer experience so that instead of feeling like they are bombarded with a long list of features they have available a focused group of benefits.&

And ittrue that Revolut has launched so many different features that ithard to keep track of what you can do with your Revolut account. For instance, you can insure your mobile phone, save money using vaults, buy cryptocurrencies, subscribe to a travel insurance package and more.

So Paysend went back to the drawing board to focus on the essential. The company lets you top up and hold money in EUR, GBP, USD, Russian rubles and Kazakhstani tenge. Paysend is partnering with Bitstamp so that you can buy and hold cryptocurrencies in the app as well.

You can then covert your money into any of those currencies at interbank exchange rates with a 1 percent markup. Revolut adds between 0.5 percent and 2 percent markup depending on the currency.

What if you&re traveling to another country You can use your Paysend card to spend money and withdraw cash in 125 currencies. You decide in the app the backup currency that you want the company to use.

When it comes to sending money, you can send money for free to other Paysend user, or send money instantly for €1 or £1.5. The company doesn&t initiate regular bank transfers. Paysend has worked on card-to-card transactions instead. You enter the card number of your friends and family members to send money to their card directly.

Sometimes, you need to send money to someone you don&t know that well. You don&t have to ask them for their card number. You can generate a payment link and send the link. The recipient can then enter their own card number to receive the payment.

This card-to-card transfer feature has already been live for a while as a standalone product. Going forward, global accounts will become the flagship product, but standalone transfers will remain available.

Paysend has already raised $20 million and there are 130 people working for the company. Global accounts are still in beta and should roll out to European users soon.

While Paysend is still a young and intriguing product, itgoing to be interesting to see how it evolves. In addition to card-to-card transfers, the company will differentiate its product from its competitors even further over time.

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A stablecoin is a cryptocurrency pegged 1-to-1 with another &stable& currency. In most cases, these coins are pegged to the US dollar and, as such, allow for true transfers of actual fiat currencies between parties using the blockchain. If you&re nodding off right now thinking about this, I would posit that these moves, however minor right now, are an important step forward in cryptocurrency acceptance.

The latest stablecoin to hit the virtual streets is the Gemini Dollar. This coin comes on the heels of the much-ridiculed Tether, a stablecoin created in 2014 that has been the the brunt of much criticism including suggestions that the team has been artificially pumping the currency with wash trades.

The new currency by Winklevoss-run Gemini is pegged directly to the US dollar on the Ethereum blockchain. This means that for every Gemini Dollar there is one actual dollar in a bank account. The Gemini Trust Company holds the deposits and has been officially accepted by the New York Department of Financial Services, the regulatory body associated with banking and finance.

The GD, in other words, is the first stablecoin to gain a truly official imprimatur.

&As the financial technology marketplace continues to evolve, New York is committed to fostering innovation while ensuring responsible growth. These approvals demonstrate that companies can create change and strong standards of compliance within a strong state regulatory framework that safeguards regulated entities and protects consumers,& said Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo.

From the release:

DFS issued a limited purpose trust company charter to Gemini in October 2015 to operate a virtual currency exchange through which it offers customers services for buying, selling, sending, receiving, and storing virtual currency. DFS issued a limited purpose trust company charter in May 2015 to itBit, now Paxos Trust Company, which operates the itBit exchange, to offer services for buying, selling, sending, receiving, and storing virtual currency.

The NYDFS requires that the Gemini dollars &are fully exchangeable for a U.S. dollar& and that Gemini will maintain records of their movement. The requirements also include controls including AML and OFAC controls to present money laundering or terrorist financing. An independent accountant will examine the fiat-holding bank account to ensure that all of the stable coins are accounted for. You can convert and withdraw Gemini Dollars directly onto the Ethereumblockchain.

What all this means is that there is now a stable, regulated coin that should offset some of the traditional volatility of crypto. Itan interesting & if limited & move by a big player in the crypto space.

If you had a cup of delicious coffee this morning, therea good chance those beans came from Colombia, which has famously been growing and selling them for centuries. But the country hasn&t produced any coffee makers — until now, anyway. The FrankOne is a clever device that puts a versatile vacuum-extraction technique in a compact, single-cup form factor.

Of course, it&ll have to hit its Kickstarter goal first. Eduardo Umaña, the designer of the FrankOne, explained that he encountered the idea one day when chatting with a Colombian roaster.

&He was making coffee then by using the ‘reverse french press& method and I thought I could improve on that,& Umaña told me in an email. &Some time after, I got very curious to test what high vacuum brewed coffee would taste like. I did some simple experiments and was very surprised by the rich and sweet flavor. One thing led to another and I ended up designing a new product.&

The FrankOne is closest in operation to the big glass vacuum drippers you might have seen in fancy coffee shops. This interesting and quite old method uses the gas pressure created by the boiling action to force the water upwards through a tube into the grounds, and then as it cools, the brewed coffee is pulled back down through a filter by the changes in air pressure. The siphons you&ve seen are elegant but not exactly convenient.

&They implement a similar principle in a very different way,& Umaña said. His device doesn&t require this dance of hot and cool; you put the cylindrical device, about the size of &a big burger,& on the included carafe and add the ground coffee. Pour in the hot water, put the lid on and wait a bit for the oils and such to extract. Then hit the button on top and let it do its thing.

A pump extracts air from the carafe, drawing the coffee down through the metal filter. In a minute or so the process is done, leaving what Umaña says is the bitter crema up in the grounds. The result is a sweet and clear cup of coffee. Its taste (I haven&t tried) is likely closest to AeroPress, as opposed to drip, due to the active force pushing (pulling, actually) the water through the grounds.

The device will accept various grinds and amounts of coffee, producing a different cup — not a possibility with French press and not advised with pourover or espresso. And itdefinitely a lot smaller than an AeroPress.

It does run on a battery, but with 150 cups per charge, you probably won&t have to worry much about it. And thereno bait and switch with custom filters or something — you just wash the thing and itready to go again.

Incidentally, I had to double-check with Umaña that no one from Colombia had gone on to create a coffee maker. The industry is so old and so important there that it seemed impossible.

&Unbelievable, right& he wrote. &It was also very meaningful to me as Colombian to work on the first Colombian designed coffee brewer. Perhaps through this project we can bring some much needed economic development to the country by innovating in coffee; it grows right in our backyard and we can do so much more than we are currently doing!&

Umaña and his company, Frank de Paula (after the second president of Colombia, who started the coffee export business there in the 19th century), are looking for $120,000 to finance the device. At $50 for the early birds itlikely a steal, at least if you&re a coffee brewing fiend like me — I collect stuff like this. Everyone needs a hobby, right It&ll cost a bill when it comes out in retail, so if you like the idea, save yourself a couple bucks and support good design with a pledge.