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Bitcoin – The Way of The Future, or Just Another Fad?

So, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you will have at least heard about Bitcoin. It’s been hailed as the new virtual currency for the digital world. Now, I’m all for a move away from currency owned and controlled by government and banking institutions, but I’m not so sure this is the way to go. I decided to delve a little deeper into the mysterious beast of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin ImageBitcoin, in their own site, state that they is a peer to peer way of managing online transactions. It’s more of a collective of users, making it a decentralised system of currency rather than the old guard centralisd system run and operated by governments and banks.

 

It’s an open-source, and community-driven software system, that involves downloading the wallet of your choice, that even has its own currency-linked vocabulary!

So where did it all come from?

The history of Bitcoin is as short as it is mysterious. No one knows the true origin of the idea, as it was posted as a concept under a pseudonym. The idea was then taken up, proof of concept published and was further developed by a group, including the original proposer, who left the group, never revealing their identity. They simply gave their idea to the world. In 2011, the idea managed to capture some media attention, which sparked a bit of a buy in by a good number of people.

So, does it have enough staying power?

That remains to be seen. I personally believe the current economic market sees it as a bit of a fad. I think it will have a hard time gathering the traction it needs to remain in use and build up a good market. Having said that, I really do hope it sticks. It makes sense – a decentralised currency for a decentralised system of transaction and interaction. I can see a few potential stumbling blocks for it though.

The powers that be will see it as a threat to the status quo, once it gathers enough users. If the banks can’t buy in to it, how will they control the currency? They won’t be able to, and this will further cause turmoil. It runs in line with my previous musings on needing a huge shift in the entire way in which we think about money and economy.

Governmental taxes will continue to be a thing. This is unavoidable. So, while we may well shift away from centrally owned and operated systems of transaction, we will not be able to completely shift away from geographic boundaries. This may prove a bit of an issue as Bitcoin gathers momentum. Governments will probably hesitate to recognise it as an actual form of currency and, as such, you may have Bitcoin wealth, but you will need to transact in the “real-world” with “real-world” currency. The exchange rates will probably start off as a joke, with operations setting up to exchange Bitcoin to real coin and reaping the rewards of providing such a service.

After all is said and done, I am not an economist. I’m not a political scientist, although I do find it amusing that those educated in these fields are unable to make sense of it all. I’m not able to make properly educated guesses as to how the world will embrace Bitcoin. These are just my musings on a very good idea that I hope will come to fruition.

 

If you want to read up on Bitcoin, you can take a look at the following links:

Bitcoin.org

WeUseCoins.com

The Bitcoin Wiki

Edge of The Web 2013 – My Take.

The first thing I identified as I entered the conference location was that I was, undeniably, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Here I was, a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed student interested in content creation and management amidst a sea of designers and developers.

In fact, that was the most asked question: “So, are you in design or development?” My most offered answer? “I’m a blogger…” Actually, I really wanted to have a shirt or a badge that said, “No, I’m not just a blogger. I am ‘in content’…” or something like that. I then thought it might be cool to have a button saying “Sure, you can code, but can you write?” as a way of setting a challenge to my fellow attendees.

Tao Te Ching; 64a. Care at the Beginning

How does this relate to Web Design? Go check out: http://alistapart.com/article/dao An oldie, but a goodie.

Edge of the Web is run by the AWIA (Australia Web Industry Association) and, as such, I can understand the focus being more finite than I might have hoped for.

The event gave me the chance to sit up the back of a room and listen to some of the best in the web industry give us their take on where we’ve been and where we’re heading. The two days crammed so much information into my brain that, unfortunately, by the end of it all I was afraid my brain was leaking out my ears. I took as extensive a set of notes as I could handle. Sadly, my typing speed, which is pretty good, was unable to keep up with all the great ideas being spread around like chocolate icing on a delicious mud cake of theory.

Essentially, I took away that we are hurtling at a great rate of knots toward a world where the end user is going to want more and more choices in the responsive design of the interfaces they are using. We may not be able to keep up with all the available platforms out there. So what do we do? We can try and keep up with it all, or we can do our best in what we know.

Another big issue that was being talked about a lot was the contentious point of outsourcing. Some saw it as an opportunity to create breathing space in order to work on those elements of a project you have a specialty in, allowing others to work their magic in their field of expertise. Others saw it as a path to the Dark Side and inevitable unemployment. As something of a freelancer, I can certainly see both sides of the argument. I would love to have a company with whom I have a working and sustainable relationship of give and take (they give me the work and I take it), but I can also see why that may not always work for them and why they may need to keep the content writing more in-house. It’s a bit surprising that there are arguments arising about it now, but I guess the freelancer or flexible work situation is growing in popularity, if not here in Perth then certainly elsewhere.

I also got the chance, on the first day, to catch up with a university colleague. It was nice to be able to put a face and voice to some words on a screen. We are both studying externally, mostly through online means, so it was nice to have some kind of face-to-face time. (Hi Rosie!)

So, would I go again? Most probably. While I may not have been their target audience, I certainly gained a lot of information – most of which I feel is still settling into place. Would I suggest others to go along? If you’re in the web industry, hells yes! If you’re in a related field, possibly. It was very focused on, as I said, a design/developer stream. I did suggest that next time round they include a “miscellaneous” stream for those of us who may not be strictly from those fields. Only time will tell.

 

You can read more about the Edge of the Web conference on Twitter, under the #EOTW and #EOTW2012 tags, and also here at their site.