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9 May 0

Italian Startup Helperbit will participate to the World Humanitarian Summit

Italian startup Helperbit has announced its participation to the Innovation Marketplace at the World Humanitarian Summit, event held by the United Nations on May 23 in Istanbul, Turkey.

What is World Humanitarian Summit

This event focuses on the daily problems that people all around the workd face everyday.

To do so, representatives of the government, local communities, international and humanitarian organizations are working together for a common goal: eliminate crisis and sufferings.The World Humanitarian Summit provides a great opportunity for worldwide leaders to help humanity in its difficult journey.

Innovation Marketplace

This particular event will show innovation, products and services that aims at improving people life. And now it also opened up to blockchain-related projects.

Among those startups, there will be Helperbit that use the distributed ledger to solve problems related to inefficiency, opacity and inadequate administration of the funds when disasters happen.

So, through the distributed ledger, Helperbit wants to make the flow of donations visible and transparent, so that the redistribution of money would be solved.

Helperbit is a natural disaster management platform that wants to help stricken people with a simple peer-to-peer donation system.

In fact, have you ever wondered what happens to the donated money? And what if it never reaches its final destination?

During the past few years, when a disaster event occurred, often someone talked about the fact that the money was gone and never reached the poor people affected.

Helperbit wants to solve this common behavior.Helperbit CEO Guido Baroncini Turricchia, explained:

helperbit ceo guido baroncini turricchia

 

“We are pleased that the United Nations identify the Blockchain as a promising research field, and that they considered Helperbit worthy of being shared as a positive application that offers transparency and efficiency in the management of humanitarian funds.”

How Helperbit Works

Helperbit platform was launched on April 20th, 2015 and since then they captured the interest of people because of their innovative project.
In fact, this is the first service that uses the blockchain related to the natural disaster management for peer-to-peer donations.
The platform launch was carried out a few days before the sad event that shocked Nepal, making present again the theme of donations – that due to bureaucratic delays, government seizures and delays – slower the aid and the possibility of support from volunteers and associations.
The Helperbit website is still in a “coming soon” phase, but in the meantime this startup is winning lots of awards, including the Blockchain Startup Competition held at the d10e in Amsterdam.
If you want more info or you want to help the project, here you can sign up.
helperbit team

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Amelia Tomasicchio
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27 Jun 0

Major Italian newspaper il Giornale accepting Bitcoin for digital subscriptions

(NEWSBTC) A major Italian newspaper outlet is apparently now accepting bitcoin
for digital subscriptions, we’re learning from a reader email this
morning. The bitcoin logo is boldly visible on il Giornale‘s digital subscriptions page [link], where nearby it says, “The Journal is the first newspaper in Italy and in Europe who accepts payments in Bitcoin.”
The outlet is one of the top 20 daily papers in Italy, with a last reported circulation number of 678,000 readers in 2012.
il Giornale‘s digital subscriptions allow readers to view
all news categories and articles in PDF files optimized for Android
smartphones, iPads, and other tablet devices.
The cost? 0.42 cents per day with an annual subscription.
ilgironale bitcoin subscription
Despite the fact that il Giornale may be the first major newspaper in Italy and Europe to accept bitcoin, they aren’t the first in the world.
Here in the United States, the Chicago Sun-Times announced they would be accepting bitcoin payments for subscriptions at the start of April of this year in a move designed “to keep the Sun-Times current and evolving with changing technology.”
Despite the news, many in the community weren’t exactly surprised,
given the paper’s previous interest in the digital currency. In early
February, the paper put up a bitcoin paywall as a test of how users
would interact with using bitcoin (users had the option of donating to a
non-profit). The results were overwhelmingly positive, with 713 donors.

While we haven’t exactly seen widespread adoption of bitcoin for
digital news subscriptions, it’s nice to see it getting a start in Italy.

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10 Jun 0

First Bitcoin hearings at the Italian Parliament tomorrow

Tomorrow, in the Aldo Moro meeting room of the Italian Parliament there will be a consultation on the open source Bitcoin protocol. The technical aspects will be introduced by:
  • Sebastiano Scrofina – CEO and Co-Founder at Dropis
  • Guido Baroncini Turricchia – CoinCapital’s Partner
  • Francesco Vatalaro – Università Di Tor Vergata
  • Massimo Bernaschi – CNR
  • Ferdinando Ametrano – Banca IMI – Università Bicocca
  • Roberto Tudini – Studio Tudini&Tudini
In the second part there will be a round table that will allow for the comparison of ideas and the points of view of different stakeholder. The event is organized by the On. Quintarelli and CoinCapital, bringing the Bitcoin inside the walls of the Italian Parliament allowing to highlight the risks and the opportunities.
Offering to the parliament a first overview and a neutral basis to start an aware and balanced discussion.

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12 Apr 0

Intesa Sanpaolo Blockchain: a new trial for recordkeeping

The newest Italian Banca Intesa Sanpaolo blockchain – related  project has been tested with the main goal of validating trading data.

Thanks also to a partnership with Deloitte and the Italian startup Eternity Wall, Intesa San Paolo started to test a new proof-of-concept at the end of 2016.

Heart of the project is the open-source OpenTimestamps protocol, developed by Peter Todd, a Bitcoin Core contributor, that Eternity Wall moved to implement.

The Intesa Sanpaolo blockchain project uses the bitcoin distributed ledger to notarize transactions and create a publicly available database trail for future referral.

Information security officer for the bank, Carlo Brezigia explained:

“Relevant data has been hashed to produce a short unique identifier – a digest – equivalent to its digital fingerprint. This fingerprint has been associated to a blockchain transaction and hence registered on the blockchain: the blockchain immutability provides robust non-refutable timestamping that will always prove without any doubt the existence of that data in that specific status at that precise moment in time.”

According to a Deloitte statement, Intesa Sanpaolo tested this tool between October and February with tht idea of including support for other blockchains, potentially including also private ledgers.

This Italian blockchain trial shows the will of regulated financial institutions to test public blockchains.

In an official announcement, the bank’s retail innovation accelerator officer, Gianni Cavallina, explained the interest in experimenting these protocols beyond the main use case of digital currenciese:

“In particular, considering public blockchains, we are exploring the applicability of different use cases, abstracting from the value of its native digital currency. Notarization is one of the most interesting applications.”

Intesa Sanpaolo Blockchain projects– also member of the R3 distributed ledger consortium – also include tests on several blockchain use cases made during the previous years, including trade finance and digital identity.

Read more about previous Italian projects related to the Blockchain here.

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Amelia Tomasicchio
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22 Dec 0

BNP Paribas Blockchain used for live transactions

A well-known worldwide seller and another important firm partecipated to the first live transactions using the BNP Paribas Blockchain service, as revealed today by the bank itself.

According to BNP Paribas, in fact, payments were processed between the Italian sports collectible firms Panini Group and the Australian packaging firm called Amcor.

The payment transactions were managed in a few minutes – the bank explained in the official press release – using different currencies to make transactions easier between bank accounts located in Germany, Netherlands and England.

Panini Group treasurer Fabrizio Masinelli commented in a statement:

“This proof-of-concept shows how powerful such technology can be and how it can be utilised as an effective and efficient response to the main issues that treasurers face on a daily basis.”

BNP Paribas Blockchain Proof of Concept

The transactions were managed by using the proof of concept called Cash Without Borders launched earlier this year after its incubation during a blockchain hackathon.

More Details about the size of the transactions will be revealed in the next future.

Also, the BNP Paribas blockchain service tested the so-called “mini-bonds” for small investments, as well as blockchain crowdfunding prototypes that might see the light next year.

According to the Panini Group’s official website, the company earned 751m euros in 2014 and employs 1,000 people worldwide.

Also, during the same year, Amcor earned  $10b in sales and employs 29,000 employees.

To read more about the BNP Paribas Blockchain service click here.

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Amelia Tomasicchio
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8 Dec 1

Saxo Bank Bitcoin Prediction for 2017

Today the Danish investment bank published its Saxo Bank Bitcoin Prediction for 2017, where it explains that wouldn’t be surprised if the bitcoin price will see huge growth during next year.

Saxo Bank, in fact, recently published its annual “Outrageous Predictions for 2017”, a list of speculations that represent its effort to get financial industry think about more possibilities and revolutionary projects for the next year.

In addition to the prediction that UK will not actually leave the European Union (EU) and that Italian equity prices will soar thanks to the European Union led bailout, Saxo Bank affirmed that the bitcoin price will reach a value of more than $2,100 by the end of 2017.

Among its reasons the prediction explained that the American President’s administration might cause turbulence in the American economy, so this can be a good reason for people to invest in digital currencies like bitcoin.

Saxo Bank Bitcoin prediction explains:

“If the banking system as well as sovereigns such as Russia and China move to accept bitcoin as a partial alternative to the USD and the traditional banking and payment system, then we could see bitcoin easily triple over the next year going from the current $700 level to +$2,100 as the block-chains decentralised system, an inability to dilute the finite supply of bitcoins as well as low to no transaction costs gains more traction and acceptance globally.”

Altough this Saxo Bank prediction doesn’t represent an official position, it is not the first bullish indication the bank has made during its career.

In 2014, then-current CEO Lars Seier Christensen explained his personal interest in bitcoin, describing it as a great opportunity for worldwide investors.

At the time, Christensen had also mentioned about early testing of the technology within Saxo bank, although later he explained that liquidity problems at the time were keeping banks on the sidelines.

Source: coindesk.com

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8 Jun 1

OpenBazaar Test: how the Bitcoin Ebay works

The Bitcoin Marketplace: OpenBazaar Test

Recently OpenBazaar, the decentralized marketplace where you can buy items for bitcoins, launched its new 1.1.6 version.
So we decided to do a OpenBazaar test, to let you deeply understand how it works and what you can buy on this innovative market using your cryptocurrencies.

Step-by-Step OpenBazaar Test: Follow this Guide to do some Shopping

1. First of all you need to go to the OpenBazaar website and click on the Download button you can find on the right top of the page.

2. A download will start soon. If it doesn’t, you just need to select your operating system such as Linux, Windows or Mac

3. After the download is completed, click on the file (maybe you will find it in the Download file) and launch it.

4. A new window will open where you have to complete your profile with info like name, timezone, avatar and your favorite currency.

5. You can also select your favorite theme to be used as a your profile template

6. Then you will be officially into your profile where you can add other info such as your social network profiles

7. Now you can start doing some shopping.

OpenBazaar has a simple interface, user-friendly enough to experiment and pay with your bitcoins.
Among the items you can find on this marketplace there is a wide range of the company’s merchandise, so I decided to support their cause by buying their pins.

8. As you can imagine, I just had to click on the item I wanted to purchase.

9. Then you just click on the “Buy Now” (“Compra ora” because my version is in Italian).
10. A windows will appear where they ask you if you already have a wallet (if not you can open it here).
11. Now you have to insert your public wallet address, you can find on your wallet among the settings.
During this process you can also create a temporary wallet address, useful if you can’t find your public wallet address and for security reasons you don’t want to disclose your private one.
12. OpenBazaar allows purchases from all around the world, but of course you need to pay extra bitcoins for the shipment.
For a shipment to Italy you need to pay an extra of about 0.0232 BTC, so I spent almost 17 EUR for that pin.

Bitcoin Wallet

HolyTransaction Banner Article

As I said, you can purchase your items on OpenBazaar by using bitcoins; and to do so of course you need a wallet.
Open your on HolyTransaction and find out more on our wallet where you can store several different cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, Peercoin, etc…
We call it a “Universal Wallet” for this reason.

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Amelia Tomasicchio
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18 May 0

Can the Blockchain bring a real advantage to the Public Administration?

blockchain_education_network_italia_rome

On June 17th, 2016 Blockchain Education Network Italia (BEN) will held an event in Rome at the Consiglio Regionale del Lazio.

The main goal of this event is to start an institutional dialogue, illustrating the operation and the possible applications of blockchain technology with the participation of leading figures in the industry, in order to create a shared path between universities and public administration towards the adoption this new paradigm. 
The blockchain proved to be more than the technology behind Bitcoin: transparency , durability and free data access are features that can be useful in various fields and not only for the financial sector. 
This is the reason why banks and companies want to study this technology. During the morning we will introduce the discussion, with a presentation of the Blockchain Education Network Italia, with speeches that will illustrate the current situation of the Italian public administration, the applications of the blockchain technology both from a technical point of view and from the legal one, focusing on research progress in the academy sector. 
After the lunch break the speeches will go wider and deeper: the entrepreneurs and leading members of the blockchain scene will present additional non-financial applications of this technology, trying to address the possible interesting applications for the Italian government. 
To end this event, there will be a round table to be attended by the speakers and other guests to try and organize the key points on which is worth working during the next few months.
Among the speakers there will be Francesco Simonetti, HolyTransaction CEO, who will talk about the social aspects related to the Blockchain technology. 

Who is Ben?

Blockchain Education Network Italia is a university association founded in December 2014 as the Italian section of the worldwide BEN. 
Its purpose is to raise awareness on Bitcoin and blockchain through education, development of projects and the continuous experimentation of new applications based on these technologies, with an eye to the academic world.

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13 May 1

The 5 must read Bitcoin Books

In this daily blog post we listed a HolyTransaction the 5 Must Read Bitcoin Books.
The crypto world is very intricated and internet is full of articles, whitepapers and ebooks about Bitcoin, so it could be difficult to figure out which authors or books are more interesting to read.
As we don’t want you to waste your time we listed 5 must read Bitcoin books. 

Blockchain Revolution by Don Tapscott and Alex Tapscott

Some months ago we wrote about Don Tapscott and his idea on how the blockchain could disrupt services as AirBnb. 
This is just one example of Tapscott’s suggestions about the Blockchain and how this ledger is a great innovation that can change the worlds as we know it.
Don and his son Alex are the authors of the new book “Blockchain Revolution”, in which they commented on the lots of Blockchain applications, starting from the music industry. This is one of the few books that explains the blockchain technology.

The Bitcoin Bible by Benjamin Guttman

This is a very easy-to-understand book with interviews and articles written by the most insightful experts of the Bitcoin community.
In its more than 200 pages Guttman explains everything you need to know about Bitcoin with pratical examples, charts and curiosities.
The first part of the book is related to the Bitcoin basis: what it is, how a transaction works, how we can obtain Bitcoin, etc.
The second chapter is about social aspects and opinions so you can find articles about how this cryptocurrency can help countries in crisis or in development.
The third one is about mining, and if you go on reading this book you can also find everything you need to know about exchanges, legal aspects, bitcoin venture capitalists and more.

The Bitcoin Big Bang: How Alternative Currencies Are About to Change the World by Brian Kelly

Written by one of the CNBC authors, in this book Brian Kelly explains the origins of this digital currency, the evolution of the payment system, how the Bitcoin network can facilitate instant trasfer of values and the Bitcoin mining, so how to invest in it.

Mastering Bitcoin by Andreas Antonopoulos

It is impossible to write a top list of the Bitcoin books without quoting the one by Andres Antonopoulos, one of the most important people in this community.
Antonopoulos founded several bitcoin-related businesses and launched lots of open-source projects. He also writes articles on bitcoin and is a permanent host on the program “Let’s Talk Bitcoin”. To know more about Andreas M. Antonopoulos’s read his profile page.

5) Bitcoin revolution: La moneta digitale alla conquista del mondo by Davide Capoti, Emanuele Colacchi, Matteo Maggioni

This is an Italian book only, so in this case we are talking with our Italian readers.
Bitcoin revolution is a simple guide on the Bitcoin world and it explains how mining works and how to invest in this cryptocurrency.
This is not a book for just technical experts of this field, but it aims at speaking with a wide range of people to let them understand how important Bitcoin can be for our daily life.

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Amelia Tomasicchio
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19 Jan 0

Bitcoin is “digital gold” and will mark the end of cash. Ametrano from IMI Bank explains.

(Sole24ore) Bitcoin is periodically back in the news, most of the time in a bad way like the recent presented use of the currency, then denied, from islamic terrorist authors of the attacks in Paris. At the same time banks and financial institutions seem extremely interested in the tech behind bitcoin.
We talk about this with Ferdinando Ametrano(*), from IMI Bank, Banca Intesa Sanpaolo group.
Professor Ametrano, what is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is a private currency, that isn’t issued by any central bank nor guaranteed by any institution. It is electronically transferrable in a practically instant way, utilising a cryptographic security protocol. It is based on a completely decentralized network: the transactions don’t require a middleman, cannot be censored, don’t have any kind of geographical or amount restriction, and are possible 24 hours a day every day and are substantially free.

How can transaction be substantially free? Who covers the costs of the bitcoin network? Who guarantees its safety?
Bitcoin’s network security is handled by nodes, that validate transactions and are also called miners.
The costs that they sustain while doing this activity are covered by issuing new bitcoins.
We’re more and more hearing about blockchain, how is it related to bitcoin?
The validated bitcoin transactions are “stacked” in blocks. Every new block of transactions is written down on a public and distributed ledger, organised like a ordered chain of blocks. This public ledger is in fact called blockchain, a term generally used to define the underlying technology of bitcoin. The blockchain tech regulates the transfer of a “digital token” to the whom can be associated a variety of goods and rights of the real world. The token, that is fundamental for the existence of this technology, gains value due to its use in the digital world.
The bitcoin currency is in fact the digital token of the first and most distributed blockchain: it’s impossible separating the two. It’s hence possible having technological applications that “hide” the token or in which the token has a value not relevant if compared to the right or to the good that it represents, and avoid calling it bitcoin or utilising a different blockchain from the one bitcoin’s using.
Is it true that bitcoin’s author could be proposed for the nobel prize in economics?
The white paper that describes the bitcoin protocol was published around October 2008, by a person known as Satoshi Nakamoto, an identity which has yet to be confirmed. Nakamoto released the source code for Bitcoin in January 2009, and then he gradually vanished, leaving the development to others. He vanished completely around mid-2010, when he stopped answering to any message. As of today, even due to the poor understanding of Bitcoin and to the lack of diffusion it has, the Nobel prize is just a boutade.
We frequently hear about anonymity in bitcoin transactions. Why?
We should instead talk about pseudonymity: the blockchain is in fact a public ledger and all the transactions take place in a transparent way between the different bitcoin addresses, which are like IBANs from our bank accounts. There is not however any way to force the identification of the person or organization behind the address.
The lack of user identification and the fact that transaction can’t be censored are aspects that make bitcoin interesting for terrorists and criminals, don’t they?
In theory, yes. But in practice the interest is limited. The common sense suggests that the currency used by terrorist in still in most cases the US dollar, because it’s globally accepted.
Back in October the British Treasury has completed a study revolved around the key points in money laundering and terrorism financing: Bitcoin was found to be the one with less risk, before banks, legal services and accountancy, gambling, cash etc. We know that criminals use internet, cellular phones, and transport services: we can’t shame technology because of this.
There are always new challenges and we have to adapt to them: the authorities have shown they know how, for example when they took down Silk Road, the darknet market that used bitcoin as the go-to currency. The most sensitive point in the Bitcoin environment are for sure the exchanges, where people can buy and sell bitcoins: they represent the point where Bitcoin and the regulated financial system make contact, where suspect actions can be intercepted.
Obviously, regulating and prosecuting the illicit uses of bitcoin is necessary, exactly like how it’s done with all the other tools we have to our disposal. How far are we in doing this?
The international regulators are following with great attention the Bitcoin phenomenon. The New York Department of Financial Services has released last June, the so-called BitLicense, a regulatory framework developed in about two years of study and consultations. The head of this department said that the regulator should not, especially at this time of development, suffocate the innovation that this new technology brings. This was repeated in the following months by the chairman of the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the Canadian Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce. Bank of England defined this promising technology as a payment system.
The European Central Bank has published two studies. If other countries and states are prudent, Europe decided a more cautious approach: the European Banking Association urged national regulators to discourage banks from buying, selling and holding bitcoins.
And yet Banks, stock exchanges, and the financial institutions in general, even while staying away from bitcoin are really interested in blockchain technology.
Of course, and for an absolutely crucial reason. Financial transactions are reversible for a long time (with credit card chargebacks possibile for up to 6 months) and even when they seem to take an instant they are actually regulated (clearing and settlement) in two or three days after the transaction itself through central counter-parties and clearing houses. The settlement system is burdened by significant costs and levies. In a world where information travels instantly at virtually no cost, these layered and convoluted processes are inefficient, expensive and inadequate. The validation of a transition on blockchain happens at the same time as its clearing and settlement and is not reversible, resembling in a lot of ways cash transactions. When you receive bitcoins you are certain that whoever sends them is in real possession of them and that the transfer is immediately effective and irreversible.
How is Bitcoin’s monetary policy defined?
The validation of a new block of transactions happens every 10 minutes or so, and requires a significant work from miners. Those who exhibit this kind of work (proof-of-work) is paid back as of now with 25 bitcoins every block. This reward halves every four years and it will reach 0 approximately in 2140, when the system will have to cover its costs with transaction fees, that, at the moment, are negligible. This defines entirely bitcoin’s monetary policy.
So, can we expect the rise of new and more efficient financial services and the redefinition of the actual ones on through blockchain technology?
It’s hard to find clear arrival points in this pioneering phase. The ‘fundamentalists’ of the blockchain technology believe that the traditional financial world will be swept away completely; these are opposed to radical conservatives who believe existing financial institutions will instead simply incorporate and adapt the tech to its needs; as always, the truth probably stands in the middle. In any case, despite the general enthusiasm or concern, it is not yet clear if and which applications will be adopted by the traditional financial world.
The blockchain technology aims at uncensored transactions guaranteed by an inherently decentralized ecosystem. Decentralization is, however, naturally inefficient in terms of scalability in the number of transactions (about 3 per second, compared to the 60 thousand possible inside the centralized VISA network) and completely sealed against regulatory processes. These features make it a problem for financial institutions and regulators.
And yet blockchain technology is more and more being represented as able to solve all the problems that currently burden our financial system: costs, inefficiency, lack of transparency, etc.
I often have the impression that behind the blockchain innovation label is behind hidden the attempt to reform the organizational side of these processes even before the technological one. Many of the proposed solutions are simple misinformation, implemented through databases in a more efficient and cheap way than a blockchain. In general, the blockchain is suitable for public goods or services, which must therefore be handled in a transparent, decentralized way.
For example, the transfer of monetary value between different countries and different currencies: you could have IOUs issued and guaranteed by banking groups and placed on a circuit that automates their compensation. A similar situation is offered by Ripple, one of the distributed public ledger solutions alternative to bitcoin. It’s easy imagining a group of banks that share this idea, maybe utilising the concept in a different distribution.
It is recent news that thirty of the most important banks in the world have joined the R3CEV consortium. The goal is to make the public distributed ledger useful in the financial world traditional, going past scalability limits. Will Intesa Sanpaolo be there?
The event that you are describing is certainly the most interesting, if nothing else just for of the caliber of participants: Intesa Sanpaolo is considering whether to join or not and in any case it will be interesting to follow the work that will be done there. The performance limits of the current blockchain technology are intrinsic to the exceptional level of decentralized security: they can be mitigated or even improved by reintroducing a minimal centralization in the network. Along this path of centralization, however, you might find that the database technology has a competitive advantage. In recent months, the debate on the distributed records saw the opposition of public (no control, such as bitcoin) to private (controlled, as Ripple). It is open to question whether and how the private distributed registers differ from simple replicated databases.
What role could banks play in the blockchain ecosystem?
The stability of the financial market needs an influential player, able to provide adequate guarantees of reliability. Banks play this role in our economy, even if not flawlessly. The customer identification (for anti-money laundering and to fight of terrorism financing), being a ‘custodian’ for the whole system and granting its functionality, giving out credits, the market-making on financial markets: these and many other activities have the banks in leadership.
I don’t think the entry in the banking world of technology giants is imminent, although it should be noted that Apple capitalise about the same as the top 30 banks in the eurozone. Moreover, the British Bank Association wrote that “banks must agree to the fact that they are more and more part of a wide ecosystem that consumers themselves are building. Well, their role in the ecosystem is far from secure. ” A lesson has already been tried in other areas by leading brands such as Kodak, Blackberry or Blockbuster.
What is Intesa Sanpaolo doing right now? Between all the great international groups you are the ones with the most conservative public profile about it.
Our bank has been following the Bitcoin phenomenon since May 2014 at least. A study task force coordinated by our Chief Economist, Gregorio De Felice, worked six months involving all of the bank’s the different functions and summarised what should be the strategy guidelines for the group. In July, we responded publicly with a documented analysis to the “Call for Evidence” of the European Security Market Association. It is certainly a land where you need to move with caution: this is why we are evaluating with great selectivity a number of initiatives. I am confident that soon enough our operational choices will become more clear.
As of now bitcoin hasn’t really imposed itself as a currency for commercial transactions, not even online.
This because bitcoin is not a good currency for transactions, but rather a speculative investment. In the digital environment bitcoin it is more comparable to gold than to a currency, sharing with gold some severe limitations in the use. A good currency should have three characteristics: being a mean of exchange, utility conservation, unit of account. Bitcoin is unbeatable on the first two aspects: instantly transferable, divisible without limit, tamper-proof, non-perishable, with virtually zero cost of conservation, and it can be easily stored for later use.
The not so good sides of Bitcoin come out when analysing the unit of account: the currency, in general, is the good we reference when we measure the relative value of other assets. And a unit we use to measure. The value of each asset, however, is determined by the law of supply and demand: as the supply of bitcoins is deterministically fixed and completely inelastic, any change in demand is reflected in changes in value. The value of Bitcoin has appreciated by a few cents in 2010 to about $ 300 today (almost touching, with a frightening volatility, the level of $ 1,200 in 2013): this aspect makes the joy of speculators but makes it impossible to have stable prices in bitcoin, contract mutual, fix salaries or lock in forward prices.
In the recent years we’ve been hearing controversial things about e-money. So is bitcoin going to fail
I wouldn’t talk about failure: bitcoin could be used, in the future, as a digital “gold reserve” asset for a next generation of cryptocurrencies with a flexible monetary policy, the ones i call “Hayek Money”. Gold was adopted without any central planning by all civilizations in the world, for its peculiarities (the fact that it does not rust and its rarity) and uses (jewellery and ornaments). The adoption of bitcoin is spreading in a similar way in the digital domain, without central planning, for its peculiarities (available in a limited non-alterable quantity) and utilities (transferable token can not be duplicated). The possibilities that are opening up in money’s history are extraordinary.
What exactly do you mean?
Money is a social relations tool and on it we’ve based the whole exchange economy. It was created by mankind to cooperate with those who are outside of the gift economy, a characteristic of the family and of close relationships. Gold has historically established themselves as a monetary standard: the minting of the coin from Caesar will initially only confirmed purity and quantity. Gold has been gradually replaced by notes, that were initially conceived as certificates that could be converted into gold, guaranteed first from private individuals and later by kings, governments and central banks.
Gold has been gradually reduced as a tool of monetary policy, due to the restrictions it involves: today we use fiat money (fiat from the Latin “fiat lux et fuit lux“), money without intrinsic value whose acceptability is based on a social contract which determines the legal tender. All democracies and developed economies have delegated the management of the currency and its stability to an independent central bank, to avoid abuses that governments could make.
The Blockchain technology has the opposite trend: for the first time after thousands of years it looks like currency can be used without Cesar controlling it.
We often hear about non financial uses of the blockchain: public vehicle record, land register, digital id certification, notary services. What is your opinion about them?
With the blockchain we have for the first time a digital token which can be transferred, but cannot be duplicated. This opens new scenarios: I have great interest and curiosity in the various proposals and I try to support their development through participation in AssoB.it, the Italian association for the promotion of the blockchain technology. But i must confess that for know i see bitcoin as the killer app in blockchain technology, like e-mail was for internet back in the 90s. There will certainly be in future businesses and services difficult to predict, like Google, Amazon or Facebook we some time ago. Personally i’ve yet to identify them.
In a time of growing demand for dramatically scarce blockchain skills, i’m afraid that Italian universities are not really being receptive. Luckly something is moving with the private research center BlockchainLab in Milan.
What could be the next big thing in the bitcoin/blockchain environment?
The digitalization of cash, which is in my opinion the most urgent and inevitable. The pros of bitcoin over cash are its traceability, transparency and the fact that it’s impossible to forge it. The blockchain could be for payment systems what was internet for communication and information.
Author: Massimo Chiriatti, technologist and member of Assob.it
*F. Ametrano is a leading italian expert in the field of coins often called virtual, mathematical or cryptographic. Professor at the University Milano Bicocca is also a member of the supervisory body of AssoB.it

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