Crypto currency notes
- David Chaumma - 1980's original inventor of crypto currency.
- Devised a secure algorithm that allowed for the kind of encryption required in electronic fund transfers.
- He is quoted as saying " I am personally excited for the. Future of crypto currencies and blockchain technology in general. Current Innovations such as bitcoin, ethereum and others are just the beginning for this technology that can help revamp many industries. There is plenty of opportunity in this space.
- Satoshi nakomoto, released first white paper in 2008, first modern crypto, released btc in 2009, 2010 merchants such as Wordpress, Expedia, Microsoft began accepting.
Allowing for a decentralised internet in which a value is accrued to infrastructure, protocols, and applications that serve market needs.
Crypto allows electronic trade across actors who may now know or trust each other without a middle man who take a heavy toll or tax on the transaction
Allowing potential for a more stable currency then ones own government for citizens who may live under despotic or irresponsible regimes.
Answer - Internet allows people in poorer parts of the world to compete for work for relatively richer parts of the world at wages higher then the local economy may bear. This has massively enriched the world and one can see why a currency that underpins internet infrastructure would be attractive.
- crypto transactions cannot be modified once they have been written on the blockchain
- Blockchain is a "ledger" (like your normal accounting system that record debit or credits), that is "public" (anyone can view the transactions that took place) and is "distributed" ( it isn't held by one company, it works more like Skype that is distributed on "nodes" all across the world who agree to store and process the transactions in exchange for bitcoin or some other crypto currency depending on the market)
- Crypto currency as of yet, operate less like a currency and more like a stock market or commodity.
- Answer - middle men have become powerful brokers in the general marketplace businesses, which over the last 20 years has transferred over to the online marketplaces.
- if you're a taxi driver you need to be part of uber or similar, to give consumers the confidence that you're trustworthy
- If you want to buy or sell goods on eBay you must use " PayPal", the largest middleman around allowing it to dictate its own exchange rates and add ridiculous fees. PayPal and similar middle men are notorious for holding their clients money without valid reasons to help pay off their own debts or in order to earn interest using other people's money. This has been proven in many cases.
- Some people don't trust their governments with national currencies. History is filled with governments who plundered resources on wars, provided economic handouts to buy the loyalty of a certain population and printed money to meet their obligations. Still evident today
- ones embrace of crypto currency for reasons other then speculative short term gains may be inversely correlated with ones trust for their local government to protect the value of their wealth through a stable economic system and currency.
3 arguments against crypto currency.
powerful governments won't tolerate the loss of monetary control of propagating illegal activities
Societal pressure to regulate crypto will increase as more people are duped, as more fraud is discovered, as more hacks occur and more market participants collaborate to manipulate the value of the currency themselves.
Erosion of trust in the public will come as first time crypto participants get duped, lose money and develop skepticism for the asset.
answer, governments use surveillance to keep track of illicit behaviour and curb or curtail activities. Drug trade, sex trade, child pornography, terrorism etc.
- such currencies attract these people as so much money could be gained by improving the ability to transact without government oversight
- No event has gotten the US and other Govs so into the crackdown of monetary flows then the movement of money within the US for terrorist activities post 9/1
- Just like the US has SEC oversight in public stocks, crypto also need some kind of oversight
- regulations will come soon, but what will it do to bitcoin?
General facts
31/12/2016 - market cap, $17,559,400,000
19/12/2017 - market cap, $630,971,95,102
3493% increase in just under a year
01/12/2017 - market cap $305.1 billion
19/12/17 - market cap $630.9 billion
Over 50% increase in 19 days
According to the CIA, the total amount of money worldwide is $80 trillion
Bitcoin is unrestriced in 96 countries
15+ million users on coinbase
457,000 number of bitcoin addresses richer then $10,000
500,000 bitcoin wallets downloaded on 18/12/2017
20+ million blockchain.info users, it has doubled since the start of 2017
Major companies that accept crypto
- Steam, worlds most popular online gaming platform, 125 million users, accepts bitcoin
- Microsoft - users can buy content with btc on Xbox and windows store
- Virgin galactic - 250,000 for a space travel, owned by Richard Branson, invested in btc in the past then endorsed it heavily. He is one of the richest business men in the world currently
- PayPal - payment solutions online. Worlds largest for buying and selling
- Tesla - first company to create an electronic car
- Shopify.com
- Stripe
- Wordpress.com
- Subway
- Expedia.com
- Dell
- The libertarian party, United States political party.