Tag Archives: future

Cryptocurrency: Fundraising Evolved

(BitcoinMagazine) If you read my previous articles about energy companies in the crypto space and a bank-free investment company, you might have noticed a growing trend. Most of the energy companies were using cryptocurrency to enhance fundraising efforts, and I also talked about crowdfunding. Although Bitcoin was inarguably designed to revolutionize currency, its initial appeal was largely as an investment, and cryptocurrency developers continue to focus on new fundraising applications.
The ability to raise money on a massive scale was actually one of mankind’s most important inventions. Before the development of financial systems, the most efficient way to finish monumental projects was by forced labor, either as the result of capture or misdeed, or regular service required by many or all members of society. While ancient wonders have been built this way, it was at great expense, and humans didn’t undertake large projects regularly until the invention of financial systems. Paid work forces are better motivated and trained, but the money was stolen, either as conquests of war, or as taxes from their own people. Seldom was it allocated appropriately.
Ethical musings aside, the main problem was that they couldn’t get as much money as they needed: whether levied at a flat rate or as a percentage of a subject’s wealth, taxation leaves massive amounts of potential funding untouched. Peasants and members of the lower class would starve if their remaining income were taken, and skilled craftsmen or merchants might hide it or flee. Those with money to spare needed to be convinced to part with it willingly, in return for something other than religious reward or nationalism.
Investment itself is at least as old as Hammurabi of Babylon, invented when the first farmer accepted seeds with the promise to repay in crops. It wasn’t until around the time of the Renaissance that merchants started doing this in a large and organized fashion. Eventually, competing monarchs began to encourage these enterprises as sources of tax revenue, and in 1602, the first stock exchange was born. The first public companies sailed the high seas, exploring and colonizing the globe for profit, and then paved the way for the Industrial Revolution.
Stock markets still rule the investment world, and were necessary for all of the technology and infrastructure we have, today. They’ve come a long way from men shouting on the exchange floor, but while automated trading is now a reality, it still has its limitations. Due to the continued reliance on human traders and bureaucrats, we often can’t trade on weekends, and fees are unnecessarily high. Moving funding onto and off of an exchange should be an equally trivial affair. The stock market was revolutionary because it made investment more fluid, inclusive and open, but at the cost of the centralization of the investment business.
Cryptocurrency will bring about the next evolution of fundraising. Bitcoin is already alleviating many of the aforementioned problems, by promoting 24/7 exchanges with speedy and nearly free deposit and withdrawal. Notable exchanges like CAVirtEx have been lowering their fiat trading fees as competition rises, and trading Bitcoin for another cryptocurrency is negligibly cheap, with less inherent restrictions. Better still, Bitcoin has been eroding the monopoly on large-scale charitable projects, previously held by governments and international organizations. Crowdfunding on platforms like Indiegogo has already begun to change this, but Bitcoin will make that easier with low transaction fees, as well as instantaneous donations that can be made on a whim. Pseudo-anonymity also makes it easier to support causes without suffering political repercussions, and Bitcoin-centric crowdfunding websites have emerged left and right.
The upcoming Satoshi Vote is a demonstrable example of such a platform. It has all the bonuses of any other Bitcoin crowdfunding site, with relative anonymity, negligible payment fees and overhead, and the ease of clicking a button. Extreme utilization of Bitcoin’s low transaction fees has enabled a new way to support projects: rather than making a one-time donation, it relies on small ongoing donations over time. Charities that do this already rely on a few donors willing to contribute a significant amount per month, but phrase it as a daily donation. Due to Bitcoin’s revolution of microtransactions, however, it is now possible to send pennies a day, or pennies a month if a large enough crowd of people are ready to contribute. As a bonus, you can cease contributing if and when the charity or project becomes undesirable.
Despite all of these improvements, Bitcoin alone doesn’t solve the larger issue, which is that the fundraising platforms are still centralized. Even if we trust a Bitcoin-based investment vehicle or exchange, they are still in control. Some emerging cryptocurrencies like NoirShares hope to cut out the middleman by going straight to the consumer: NRS is redeemable for equity in the decentralized autonomous projects they’re working on, in addition to being transferable as a normal cryptocurrency. It’s notable for it’s hybrid PW/PoS mining system, in which proof of work is gradually phased out as the network gains strength to conserve energy. As NoirGroup develops more and more profitable decentralized autonomous software, NoirShares becomes more useful.
Developers have also designed coins for non-profit fundraising. CharityCoin gives 10% of all mined coins to democratically-selected charities, which benefit more as the coins increase in value. SwarmCoin lies somewhere in-between, being intended for decentralized crowdfunding in general–holders of swarm coins vote upon which projects to launch on the SwarmCoin network, and Swarm enables those project managers or organizations to launch a coin of their own with no programming knowledge. SwarmCoin holders receive the transaction fees applied to these coins in the form of more SWARM, and can directly exchange those coins for project-specific coins. This would cause a project’s coin to go up in value, making them analogous to stocks or equity, and SwarmCoin not unlike a stock exchange communally owned by those with swarm coins.
These coins effectively represent equity in their associated projects–if more people want them than the issuer and others are selling, the price goes up, along with the value of the issuer’s remaining stash. This leaves one final problem: where do we buy NoirShares or SWARM, or any of the aforementioned cryptocurrency? What if we want to exchange between them? Swarm itself is hosted by another protocol called Counterparty, a next-generation addition to the Bitcoin blockchain that allows a variety of new functions. In addition to the ability to create new coins on the Bitcoin network, Counterparty allows the virtual representation of any currency, asset or equity, and a decentralized way to exchange them with no central authority involved, all on the blockchain. Traditional stock and currency exchanges are now obsolete.
Counterparty’s intermediary currency, XCP, can be directly acquired with Bitcoin, using a process known as “proof of burn.” One might think this could lead to a Bitcoin/XCP monopoly, but Counterparty is only one of many next-generation blockchain applications. Mastercoin (Omni Layer) is also built on top of the Bitcoin protocol, and also allows for decentralized exchange in addition to virtual property. Ethereum is based on its own blockchain, and promises an even wider variety of features, but it’s hard to know which ones will last in the myriad of emerging platforms. Rest assured that Bitcoin 2.0 is coming, and fundraising will never be the same.

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Why Bitcoin may re-write banking practice

(BusinessTech) Bitcoin has grown from an experiment in digital cash to a vibrant, global economy supporting multi-million dollar companies with a market cap of $10 billion.

While the road has been bumpy, and quite a rollercoaster ride, it is still nascent and holds immense promise to change the world in unprecedented ways,” said Simon de la Rouviere, speaking at the recent Nedgroup Investments Cash Solutions Treasurers Conference.

In 2013, the hockey-stick growth often found in the technology space kicked off for Bitcoin, seeing adoption increase worldwide.” De la Rouviere, a technology entrepreneur who develops cryptocurrency applications, believes that Bitcoin’s global, public, distributed asset ledger is a fundamental innovation that could upset various industries – from banking to public records. “Any business in the field of recording information fit into a ledger that charges fees to be a middleman is at risk of becoming obsolete,” he said. As copy of Bitcoin’s ledger exists on every network participant’s computer, and is continually updated, reconciled and synchronized in real-time. Each member can make entries into the ledger, which records transactions of a certain amount of currency from one participant to another. Each entry is propagated to the network, so that every copy on every computer is updated near simultaneously and all copies of the ledger remain synchronized. “This blockchain technology could easily be adopted to work with title deeds, physical keys, private equity, derivatives, escrow, dispute mediation, passports, wills, domain names, and sim cards – to name but a few,” De la Rouviere said.

The future

Looking farther ahead, the technology could potentially bring about a new apolitical reserve currency that allows programs and machines to own forms of value without the requirement of human intervention.

This could herald an almost sci-fi era, where machines earn their keep by providing services to humanity at an even more cost-efficient, break-even level than currently possible, De la Rouviere said.

By thinking of Bitcoin not as a currency, but as a single solution to a previously unsolved algorithmic problem in distributed systems, colloquially known as the Byzantine Fault Tolerance, humanity can create global systems of consensus powered by mathematics.” Bitcoin is a grand experiment, currently at the forefront of showing the equalizing force that the internet brought about. “It might still one day fail,” he added, “but rest assured, it is spurring innovative thinking across the board.” Sean Segar, head of cash solutions at Nedgroup Investments, said that while the bank  believes in staying abreast of trends or fads that may affect the industry, “we have no plans to launch a Bitcoin fund”.

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Imagine a Bitcoin Valley…!

(Politico) The popular recipe for creating the “next” Silicon Valley goes something like this:
  • Build a big, beautiful, fully equipped technology park;
  • Mix in R&D labs and university centers;
  • Provide incentives to attract scientists, firms and users;
  • Interconnect the industry through consortia and specialized suppliers;
  • Protect intellectual property and tech transfer; and,
  • Establish a favorable business environment and regulations.

Except … this approach to innovation clusters hasn’t really worked. Some have even dismissed
these government-driven efforts as “modern-day snake oil.” Yet
policymakers are always searching for the next Silicon Valley because of
the critical link between tech innovation, economic growth and social
opportunity.

Previous efforts at such clusters failed
for a variety of reasons, but one big reason is that government efforts
alone simply don’t draw people. That’s why a recent crop of experiments
has focused more on building entrepreneurial communities, urban hubs and districts, and hackerspaces. Still, we’re “splitting the logic” on how to create an innovation ecosystem, according to MIT expert Fiona Murray in Technology Review:
We’re either going top-down by focusing primarily on
infrastructure—plunking down an office park next to a university—or
bottom-up by focusing on just the networks. None of these efforts
successfully pursue both paths at once, with government, academia and
entrepreneurial communities proceeding together in lockstep—as was the
case in the development of Silicon Valley.  

But policymakers shouldn’t be trying to copy Silicon
Valley. Instead, they should be figuring out what domain is (or could
be) specific to their region—and then removing the regulatory hurdles
for that particular domain. Because we don’t want 50 Silicon Valleys; we
want 50 different variations of Silicon Valley, all unique from each other and all focusing on different domains.

Imagine a Bitcoin Valley, for instance, where some country fully
legalizes cryptocurrencies for all financial functions. Or a Drone
Valley, where a particular region removes all legal barriers to flying
unmanned aerial vehicles locally. A Driverless Car Valley in a city that
allows experimentation with different autonomous car designs,
redesigned roadways and safety laws. A Stem Cell Valley. And so on.

There’s
a key difference from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come argument of
yore. Here, the focus is more on driving regulatory competition between
city, state and national governments. There are many new categories of
innovation out there and entrepreneurs eager to go after opportunities
within each of them. Rethinking the regulatory barriers in specific
industries would better draw the startups, researchers and divisions of
big companies that want to innovate in the vanguard of a particular
domain—while also exploring and addressing many of the difficult
regulatory issues along the way.
Why this approach? Compared with
previous innovation-cluster efforts where governments contrived to do
something unnatural, this proposal flows from what governments naturally
do best: create, or rather, relax laws.
Another
advantage of this approach is that it’s a way for clusters to
differentiate from each other and successfully compete for resources.
Think of it as a sort of “global arbitrage” around permissionless innovation—the
freedom to create new technologies without having to ask the powers
that be for their blessing. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the
difference between opportunities in different regions, where innovation
in a particular domain of interest may be restricted in one region,
allowed and encouraged in another, or completely legal in still another.
For example, the laws and guidelines for using drones or taxing bitcoin already vary widely across the globe, just as they do for ride-sharing services across different cities in the United States.
But
the biggest advantage of the 50-different-Silicon Valleys approach
isn’t just in what it affords isolated regions or entrepreneurs—it’s in
accelerating innovation everywhere. Removing regulations across
different regions allows multiple innovation categories to advance
together at once, in parallel, without being bottlenecked by time or
place.
So what are the risks? Well, there’s a real possibility
that advanced regions will essentially outsource or “regulate away”
their own risk at the expense of less advanced ones. To get ahead,
poorer countries may become more tempted to take on the very things
wealthier countries are fencing out of their borders. But as long as the
innovations aren’t life-threatening—and many of the restricted domains
aren’t (the restrictions are often protecting incumbent interests)—a
model like this one provides a much faster and more feasible way for
developing regions to catch up. Especially when you consider the
advantage that previous innovation clusters didn’t have: mobile.

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Bitcoin will surpass PayPal in US Dollar transactions, according to BVI Hedge Fund

(SBWIRE) Laureate sees the current dip in price at US$522.57 as an opportunity to buy the alternative currency that could increase 50 per cent in price in the near-term as it threatens to overtake PayPal in transactional volume for the first time 2014.
According to bitcoinwatch.com the daily average of bitcoins trading in US dollar transactions is nearly US$300 million.
CEO Peter Tasca of Laureate Trust states, “Whenever you have an instrument that trades over 300 million US dollars a day, it must be recognized. The digital currency works, Bitcoin has greater volume transactions than Western Union and we anticipate it will overtake PayPal later this year.” “In the next one or two years, Bitcoin can surpass the dollar transaction volumes of other established payment companies including Discover, and even American Express, MasterCard, and Visa,” stated SmartMetric CEO Chaya Hendrick.
Laureate Trust provides expert portfolio management that achieves optimal results. The proven trading strategies are based on four principles: diversification, technical analysis, trend following and risk management, which combined have the potential to profit from any economic situation. In 2013 this multiple platform strategy returned +23.01% net of all fees which has outperformed the Barron’s Top 100 Hedge Fund Average, Barclayhedge Fund Index Average and the S&P 500 Total Return Average.

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Why Bitcoin is important for the world: Bitcoin can stop governments from murdering people

(CoinTelegraph) Bitcoin evangelist, libertarian and millionaire Roger Ver thinks that
Bitcoin’s limited growth can stop governments from raging wars across
the world. 
Ver gave a speech at Coin Congress in
Singapore back in May entitled “Why Bitcoin is Important for the World.”
It was a sort of quick introduction into the world of Bitcoin, until
Ver used the last few minutes in his speech to “rant about what has
[him] most excited about how Bitcoin is going to change the world for
the better.” 
Ver, who runs what was one of the first mainstream sites to take bitcoin payments, MemoryDealers, said that fiat currency was to blame for Governments’ (like his own United States) penchant for raging wars overseas. 
Ver
said that “Not only do they control [fiat], they can print as much of
it as they want at any time. . . I see the United States Government
printing money like crazy and then they use that money to buy all sorts
of tanks and bombs and airplanes and murder people all over the world. .
. all that is being paid for by printing money.” 
“With
Bitcoin,” Ver continued “because there is a limited supply, that sort
of thing can’t happen.” Ver hopes that Bitcoin’s inability to be printed
at will, will prevent governments from using printed money to fund
warfare. 
Ver sees a world that uses Bitcoin as one that is “much safer” for every individual on the planet. 
Bitcoin’s
possible effect on world peace is something we won’t know until if and
when it obtains true widespread adoption. But it is true that Bitcoin
can’t be printed out of thin air due to a limited supply. If a
government used it as legal tender then they would have to find a
different way to fund any war.

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On the origins of money: Darwin and the evolution of cryptocurrency

(CoinDesk) Charles Darwin first published his theory of natural selection in his book On the Origin of Species
in 1859. The result of over 30 years of research, Darwin delivered to
the world a new understanding of how modern species came to be, evolving
over generations.

The son of a wealthy English family, Darwin was not a man in need of money. Nonetheless, for On the Origin of Species and his other publications, Darwin received royalties that were most likely paid in British Sterling.

Still in existence, the British Pound has origins dating back as far as 750
A.D. making it the world’s longest-surviving active currency. At the
time, I wonder if Darwin recognized that the very currency by which he
was being compensated would one day be subject to his very theory of
natural selection?

It is a realization that would become far more evident 150 years later with the advent of blockchain technology.

For the fortunate minority throughout history, as with Darwin, a given
currency is not subject to question. It serves as the accepted means of
exchange and is recognized as such from the time one is old enough to
understand value.

In this way, currencies are not understood as subject to the laws of natural selection. For the less fortunate
majority throughout history, and likely for more fortunate generations
to come, this may not be the case.

Natural Selection

Natural Selection can be defined as the process by which specific traits become
more or less common in a population over time and it serves as the
foundation for the theory of evolution. It is the result of the relative
success or failure of these traits competing in a given environment.

Put more simply, it embodies the concept of “survival of the fittest”.
Darwin famously defended his theory by describing the various species of
finches observed on the Galapagos Islands.

He noted 13 separate species of finch within the ecosystem, each with its
own unique food supply. The key differentiating trait between each
species was the unique structure and size of beak. Darwin argued that
each specie of finch had evolved as the result of varied food supply,
where each beak was the best suited to each specific food source
available within their environment.

The law of natural selection is most often observed in nature but can also be applied outside of this
realm. Corporations are forced to continuously compete and evolve to
remain relevant and profitable. Those corporations with the necessary
traits such as the ability to innovate, adapt and comply with
regulations succeed, while many more go extinct.
Whatever the environment may be, specific traits prove advantageous while others do
not. It is in understanding which traits provide advantage and which do
not that once can better understand how the fittest survived, and
furthermore predict who the fittest will be in the future.

The Traditional Traits of Money

Before we can understand how natural selection applies to currencies, we must
first define the traditional traits that have been used to characterize
them. For the purposes of keeping in line with the language of Darwin,
we will refer to what is traditionally stated as a property of money as a trait.

Table 1.0 displays the commonly accepted traits that characterize money as well as an
estimated rating as to the ability of each specific medium, in this case
gold and fiat currencies, to fulfil these traits within the modern
environment on a scale of High, Medium, and Low.

While the ratings of these traits are subject to debate, the table below provides a relatively accurate representation.

Gold has long served as an established means of exchange as well as a
commodity. Gold coins were adopted by King Croesus around 550 BC. King
Croesus was no fool. He selected gold as it fulfilled many of the
necessary traits to act as money.

Relative to the era, it was highly fungible, non-consumable, durable and scarce. These traits were
strong enough to become a leading form of money simply because there was
nothing else around that fulfilled these requirements as well.

But why did the king not select stones or feathers?  The answer is that
these forms failed to be fungible, highly divisible, secure, and scarce.

The fact that gold has remained a valued commodity for thousands of years speaks to the
importance of these specific traits. In fact, the combination of traits
possessed by gold and other precious metals eventually provided the
foundation for the next evolution in money, fiat currency.

In money’s next evolution of specie, fiat currency fulfilled several
critical traits to an even greater degree than gold. Paper was more
portable and could be more easily transacted. That is not to say it was
entirely superior. In many cases fiat currencies lacked durability, and
as we will see, would eventually become less and less scarce. In fact,
many fiat currencies have failed due to inflation; a inevitable result
of the inability of the currency to remain scarce.

As a specie of currency, fiat currencies were not perfect but nonetheless
flourished in the last millennia. But how can this be? Are the benefits
of better fungibility and transportability really that significant as to
reign as the dominant specie of currency for so long?

In reality, much of the credit for their rise, survival and success is due to the
existence of another less recognized trait. The trait of centralized
sovereignty lead to the creation and issuance of hundreds of new forms
of money. Table 2.0 displays the degree to which gold and fiat
currencies fulfill the traditionally recognized traits of money in
addition to the newly recognized trait of sovereignty.

As of May 2014, there were 193 recognized fiat currencies in circulation regularly competing in global markets.
Each of these currencies belong to the same specie, fiat. It is important to
recognize that dollars, euros and yen were not mined or extracted from
the environment. These are man-made; designed and issued by centralized
authorities.

For centuries, the specie of fiat currency has thrived as a result of this fact and that these forms of money could be
used to pay taxes. In the course of its existence fiat currency has
evolved from a hybrid, by which the currency has been backed by a valued
commodity such as gold, to a self-standing form of money with no
physical backing.

During this period of time, the most notable trait to have changed for the world’s most widely recognized fiat
standard, the US dollar, has been scarcity. Once backed by gold, the
dollar was severed from the commodity in 1971 and as a result its
scarcity is no longer a trait that the specie of fiat currency fulfills.

In fact, to the surprise of many, there no longer remains a single fiat
currency in existence that is backed by gold. This evolution, or what
could possibly be regarded as de-evolution, of fiat currency as a specie
may have significant implications on its ability to compete and survive
in an environment with dynamically changing conditions.

Cryptocurrency and the New Traits of Money

The invention of the block chain has given rise to a new specie of currency, that of cryptocurrency.
The arrival of cryptographic-based currencies has enabled key new traits
previously not possible with traditional forms of money. Furthermore,
the realization of such traits will likely have a dramatic impact on the
environment in which these currencies compete.
Table 3.0 now includes the specie of cryptocurrency when rated against the
traditional and newly realized traits of money. The two newly-realized
traits include the following:

  1. Decentralized:
    Defined as the delegation of power from a central authority to regional
    and local authorities. With regards to block chain-based
    cryptocurrencies decentralization implies a trust-less and distributed
    network. This trait is a dramatically new innovation as a direct result
    of the invention of the blockchain and was impossible with any other
    prior form of money.
  2. Smart (Programmable): The
    trait of smart currency indicates the capability to fulfill a growing
    array of functions still yet to be determined. Existing innovations in
    the cryptocurrency space foreshadow the potential that currencies could
    be designed as such to not only act as currencies but represent other
    forms of value as well.

Survival and Extinction

Extinction can most simply be described as the failure of a specie to compete in
an environment to such at a degree that it eventually ceases to exist.
The inability to compete itself may be the result of two primary causes;
increased competition from superior species or a dramatic change in
environment.

For the dinosaurs, particularly land-based species,
the traits of size and strength were essential to their rise to
prominence. Although these traits enabled them to thrive for centuries
they did not allow them to compete as a specie forever.

The advantages they enjoyed at the time also meant that they required large
consistent amounts resources, most particularly food and oxygen. As a
result, at the end of the Cretaceous Period many specie were unable to
survive what is widely believed to have been the arrival of a
earth-shaking comet known as the K-T Event.
Evidence suggests that a large comet impacted earth and darkened the sky with dust and ash.
The blocking of the sun starved sun-dependent plant life and resulted in
a sharp reduction to the supply of oxygen.

The Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences estimates that this event killed off
75% of species. The traits that had once helped dinosaurs flourish now
proved to be the traits that left them susceptible to extinction.

Meanwhile, studies show that the freshwater organisms of the time only lost 10% of
their species. The commonly accepted explanation is that the freshwater
species were already conditioned to endure annual winter freezes where
their oxygen supplies were diminished.
Their relatively limited dependence on oxygen insulated them from the effects of changes to their
environment allowing them to survive. Dramatic changes to the
conditions brought on by the K-T Event changed the paradigm and a new
combination of traits became necessary to ensure competitiveness and
survival. Meanwhile, the majority of land-based species disappeared
forever, their greatest strengths having become their greatest weaknesses.

Currency, like the dinosaurs, has already shown us that it is not always the immediately dominant specie that will survive
the test of time. In an era that has seen hundreds of highly evolved
fiat currencies go extinct, gold endures.

Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection originated to provide an evidence based explanation
of the past. We now leverage this theory to look forward and understand
its implications on the future of currency. Given the ever-changing
conditions of the future, will gold and fiat currencies continue to compete or go the way of the dinosaur?

The New Paradigm – Currency Competition

According to a study of 775 fiat currencies by DollarDaze.org the average life expectancy of a fiat currency is 27 years. The study
also indicated the most common causes of any given currencies extinction are hyperinflation, monetary reform, war and independence.
With fiat currencies being so susceptible to failure, gold has long served as an alternative as it is more scarce and durable. In terms of scarcity, fiat currencies can be printed and inflated at the will of their authorities.

With regards to durability, the US Federal Reserve
estimates the longest average lifespan of any paper bill is 15 years
($100 bill) with the shortest lifespan being 3.7 years ($50 bill). As a
result, gold has maintained a relatively high value in the era of fiat
currency and remains the primary alternative store of value when faith
in fiat currencies waiver. In this way, these stores of value have
primarily competed based upon only two of the traits of money; scarcity
and durability.

Fiat currencies and commodities now enter a new
paradigm where money can exist that possesses even more dynamic traits.
Gold and fiat currencies are not capable of possessing the newly
inherent traits that would make them decentralized or smart
(programmable).

Cryptocurrency has arrived adding heightened
competition. To date, bitcoin is the most widely recognized
cryptocurrency, but it is not alone. In the 5 years that
cryptocurrencies have existed over 200 have been established and the
list is growing.
Furthermore, the currencies themselves are in a state of hyper-evolution
as they continue to take on a varied array of distinctive traits that
set them apart from one another within their own competitive ecosystem.

Equally as threatening to traditional forms of money, the conditions of the
environment in which currencies compete is in a constant state of
change. Undertones of growing distrust in centralized entities encourage
populations to considered alternatives stores of value.
Sovereignty,
once a trait that was necessary for the survival of a currency, may now
be falling out of favor. Centralized failures such as the US financial
crisis of 2008 or hyper-inflated fiat currencies such as Zimbabwe
dollars or Argentinian pesos compound these sentiments. The most
profound of these conditions is the growing awareness throughout the
world that decentralized trust is possible.

It is interesting to imagine what Charles Darwin would make of the current state of currency.
History would have us believe that the existence and survival of any
entity, be it plant, animal, corporation, or currency is the subject to
the laws of natural selection.

With this understanding, it is hard to imagine Darwin contesting the opinion that cryptocurrency will prove
a competitive force against traditional specie of money.

Ultimately, the real question may not be whether or not Darwin would predict the
survival of cryptocurrency, rather would he be willing exchange those
British Sterling pounds for it?

Author Bio:
Ryan Walker is an independent
consultant and cryptocurrency enthusiast based out of Denver, Colorado.
Here, he joins the dots between Darwin’s theory of evolution, fiat money
and the rise of cryptocurrencies.

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Bitcoin backers work to make it mainstream

When Bitcoin emerged five years ago, it was the payment system many
geeks and enthusiasts had dreamed of: an international, decentralized,
anonymous, and transparent virtual currency that could potentially
replace inefficient traditional ones.
(Forbes) As investor Andy Kessler recently wrote in
the Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin participation requires “a certain
faith in the benevolence of strangers.” But instead, the general public
is ambivalent at best about the virtual currency, while
many Bitcoin-related startups fight an uphill battle to convince the
world that it is at least comparable to its established counterparts, if
not better. Some retailers are pro-Bitcoin as well. Overstock.com and
TigerDirect now accept it as payment.
And three weeks ago, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, famous for having been portrayed in the movie The Social Network, disclosed that they would list a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund on the Nasdaq. The Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust aims to make investing in bitcoins as easy as buying shares of a public company.
The Winklevoss twins, who have themselves been Bitcoin investors for
some time, are also bullish on the future of the digital currency and
believe there should be easier ways to invest in it. They established
their fund for people who are eager to invest in the currency, but who
don’t want to actually own bitcoins. Their first-of-its-kind
exchange-traded fund can be bought and sold on the public markets like a
stock or an index fund. Previously, people interested in trading
bitcoins as an asset class had to store the currency themselves and take
on the risk that goes with that. The brothers were recently quoted
saying their business will remove “the friction of buying…while offering
similar investment attributes to direct ownership”.
Whether they rally Bitcoin adoption or not, they certainly remove some
longstanding obstacles to its viability as a consumer product. It’s
likely that in the coming months new services will continue to emerge
that aim to make Bitcoin mainstream.

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Andreessen sees bitcoin as the ‘big breakthrough’

Marc Andreessen, the tech entrepreneur who rose to fame as one of the founders of Netscape, takes the latter view, going as far as to say that in 20 years we will be talking about bitcoin the way we now talk about the Internet.

In a candid interview in the Washington Post, Andreessen shrugs off the prevalent definition of bitcoin as a digital currency. “It’s a much deeper concept than currency. It’s the idea of distributed trust,” he says.
Andreessen says that had the concept of bitcoin been hatched 20 years ago, it would have been built into the browser. He views it as a foundation with potentially “hundreds or thousands of applications and companies that could get built on top.
What type of applications or companies? Digital stocks. Digital equities. Digital fundraising for companies. Digital bonds. Digital contracts, digital keys, digital title, who owns what–digital title to your house, to your car,” he says.

Andreessen argues that it has the potential to actually be a safer form of ecommerce than the credit card-based system that is currently in place.

It doesn’t make sense online to have a payment mechanism that requires you to hand over your credentials to make a payment,” Andreessen says, “That’s just an invitation to fraud and identity theft. It’s just stupid.
Instead, Andreessen argues, ecommerce should have been built upon a distributed trust type system like what bitcoin offers.
But we didn’t have the better way of doing it,” he says. “So we didn’t know what else to do, and now we have the better way of doing it. Now, it’s going to take time.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi

The Rise of Cryptosponsorships

DOGECOIN

Dogecoin, the Internet meme turned cryptocurrency, has never had trouble gaining publicity. In January the Doge community sponsored the Jamaican bobsled team at the Sochi Olympics, then in March the Dogecoin subreddit sponsored NASCAR driver Josh Wise at Talladega Speedway. It was an idea, it seems, that has spawned a host of imitators.

KARMA
It was recently announced that KARMA (formerly Karmacoin) will be sponsoring a 4L car in the 2015 RAID 4L Trophy.

For those who don’t know, this is an annual road race from France (this year the starting points are Paris in the north and Bordeaux in the south) down through Spain to Marrakesh, Morrocco. The race is only open to students aged 18 to 28, and they may only use Renault 4 cars. The teams have 10 days to make it from start to finish, over a course that includes 1,500 miles of harsh North African desert. Established in 1997 in Rennes, the 4L Trophy is mainly done to provide children with school supplies. This year an estimated 80 tons of school furniture was delivered by 2,648 students representing 1,324 teams from 1,460 colleges. With a market cap of less than $200K at the time of this writing, it is unclear if the KARMA team will be able to raise the funds necessary to participate in the race, With a volume of 50 billion KARMA in existence, it seems that they wish to compete with both doge and Reddcoin as the default tipping currency for the internet, so this could see the value rise as people buy KARMA to help sponsor the team.  

ULTRACOIN
Image courtesy: abc.net.au

Another athlete being sponsored by crypto is Elsa Hammond who is attempting to row 2,400 miles across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii in the first Great Pacific Race. Consisting of soloists or teams up to four, there are no sails or motors allowed, making this is a grueling test of physical and mental stamina. To help offset the cost ($336,000) Ms. Hammond, the only European contestant in the race, is asking donors for $70 (42 Pounds Sterling) per mile. In exchange Hammond will add your special woman’s name to her boat. She has also secured a sponsorship from Ultracoin whose founder has promised “substantial” amounts of Ultracoin after the completion of the event. With Ultracoin set to peak at 100 million coins the term “substantial” could really be anything, so that will be interesting to watch.

At the time of this writing Ultracoin has a market cap of over $400,000 and sell for roughly $.03 each, so the sponsorship could be significant. This would definitely be a good thing for Hammond since she plans to donate to gender equality charity The Great Initiative, as well as the Plastic Oceans Foundation.

VERTCOIN

And finally we have Vertcoin Athlete, one of the more interesting variations on this theme. Colorado-based marathon runner Brandon Kurtz attempted to raise some Vertcoin to finance a trip to Germany to participate in a marathon there. He was able to raise 200 Vertcoin (~$200), which wouldn’t have covered airfare much less accomodations. Undaunted he has since decided to spur awareness by selling Vertcoin-themed merch making those who purchase the gear de facto ambassadors of both cryptocurrency in general, and Vertcoin in particular.
Kurtz doesn’t only want to sponsor himself, however. His initiative seeks to inspire more athletes to pick up the Vertcoin banner and spread the word even further, hopefully increasing not only awareness of Vertcoin, but the value as well. With a current market cap of $4 million, there is plenty of room for growth, and no reason to doubt that Vertcoin, one of the first ASIC-resistant altcoins, will continue to grow in popularity.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi

Top 5 national altcoins available today!

(CoinReport) Bitcoin has influenced many forms of digital currencies to come out
of the gate and make an impression on the world. However, some digital
currencies are not intended to be used across the globe. Instead, they
are implemented within a country’s economy in order to help boost the
nation’s finances.
These national altcoins are designed to take
the concept of bitcoin, and use it locally. In most cases, national
coins are not allowed to be used outside of the country, as their is
fear that the value of such coins will fall. This alternative to using
money keeps the government separate from cash, all the while putting
power in the hands of the people.
Here is our list for the top 5 national altcoins.

National Altcoins

5. Swiftcoin

Like the many digital currencies that came before it, swiftcoin is an electronic form of money. Sending them from point A to point B is as simple as sending an email or attachment file.
Today, many countries fear the collapse of their financial systems, but digital coins such as swiftcoin, look to protect and revamp them.
Like
most national altcoins, swiftcoin can not be mined off of a
computer. Instead, swiftcoins are purchased with cash or bitcoin. They
can also be earned by selling goods and services using Oswift.com.
The digital currency was created by the First National BNAK of Swiftcoin in
Uruguay, and allows locals to set up accounts, as well as buy and sell
digital coins like bitcoin and swiftcoin for cash or precious metals.

4. Isracoin

Isracoin
is already one of the world’s most successful national altcoins. The
digital currency allowed for public mining on March 26th, and was
airdropped to citizens on May 6th.
Isracoin has already begun its
four phase process to get more people on board with the digital
currency. This well thought out plan will help circulate and introduce
locals to a new way of spending money.
The coin offers benefits
that can also be found in bitcoin, such as low interest on deposits and
low cost transaction fees. With Isracoin, the goal is to disrupt the
current banking system of Israel.

3. Spaincoin

Spaincoin
is ideal for Spaniards as it allows them to break free from the
shackles of the government. It was launched on March 12th, just a few
days before Isracoin.
With Spaincoin, Spain is the biggest country
to have its own national digital currency, with a population of over 46
million people. Spain’s economy has been in a rough spot for the past
couple of years, and with Spaincoin, there is a good chance that there
will be brighter days for the country.
The first 50,000 recipients
of the coin will get 100 SPA each, and then the next 50,000 people will
get 50 SPA each. This will allow for a more balanced distribution.

2. Scotcoin

Scotland’s Scotcoin, not
only allow people a chance to establish a new financial structure, but
also helps Scots gain independence from Britain and the pound.
The risks that come from traditional markets will no longer be an issue with the Scotcoin.
The new coin works as a plan B to keep order in the economy in case
there is a major collapse with its already existing system.
Scottish businesses have already taken a liking towards the new crypto currency, which was created by Derek Nisbet. Nesbit feels even more businesses will get on board with the new digital coin as time goes on. He says:

“This
is a one-shot opportunity for Scotland to truly become an international
powerhouse if we can take back the power of our monetary issuance as
credit, as opposed to issued debt with interest from privately owned and
operated banking interests and cartels.”

Nesbit adds that every adult will get 1,000 coins each, and each business will receive 5,000.

1. Auroracoin

Auroracoin
is based in Iceland, and was sent as a way to save the country’s
economy. The virtual coin is based on litecoin, and was devised
by Baldur Friggjar Odinsson.
Though Odinsson is not the person’s
real identity, similar to bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, the coin is a
saving grace to the people of Iceland.
The altcoin has the
potential of getting the people of Iceland out of what seems like an
endless financial rut. Success can’t truly be determined until
Auroracoin has ample time to make an impact on Iceland.
To make
the coin a big success, citizens are going to have to be patient and not
run off selling their coins for cash at the first chance they get.
The
world’s economical crisis has put a large cloud over finance, but
digital coins hope to correct this issue. The planet has changed to
where everything is digital. So the obvious solution to correct the
economy could be to make money go digital as well. Whether national
altcoins or bitcoin, crypto currencies are a potential solution that the
world shouldn’t ignore.

Open your free digital wallet here to store your cryptocurrencies in a safe place.

Satoshi