What to do with Bitcoin us, ordinary people
In this article there will be a small analysis of various reviews about Bitcoin, which may be useful for people unfamiliar with this currency, but who want to sneak through confusing and contradictory information about it in a simple and accessible form. Many people who are interested in the economic and social nature of this phenomenon find themselves in an unpleasant situation, where information from many sources contradicts each other so much, but it is supported by numerous references and complicated calculations that at least somehow understand the situation is a great investment of time and works.
All of the following does not claim to be absolute, but is the result of a rather long study of the social and economic side of Bitcoin, and at the same time I will try to do without complex formulas and technical details that are very well covered in Habré. This article is a simple reflection, supported by quotes from famous people. It is written in a positive way, and this text can be considered as a response to numerous accusations of the speculative nature of cryptocurrency, its “shadow” side, and also provides an answer to the question of what an ordinary person should do with Bitcoins. If it is interesting to you, welcome under kat.
My deep conviction is that Bitcoin needs no slogans, not revolution with a revolution of consciousness, but a simple and clear concept for most ordinary people to use, such as all major projects / start-ups have, expressed in a couple of phrases and supported by a ready-made mechanism, implementation concept. Now about Bitcoin speak only in the light of "investment" - capital accumulation, the expectation of growth rate, "speculation" - operations on the exchange rate, and "payment" - the use of virtual currency from a virtual wallet as a means of exchange.
')
Fairy-tale stories about investments, about thousands of percent, about “I bought a hundred bucks in 2009, and bought an apartment in 2013” ​​- that’s all, of course, sweet and tempting, but for most people there are only words that can cause a memory bubble and a gold fever. At this level, it is almost impossible to act in isolation from the state, only the state knows and has at its disposal the levers of really massive influence on the mainstream public to take money, which we are seeing now, over the past year - where every bit of government is associated with bitcoins, and the informational hype created inevitably affects the Bitcoin rate, then a great rise, then a discouraging fall. Ordinary people - it is not necessary, sit and be afraid of investment. Everything is so scary. So, for example, right now we are witnessing a large depreciation of Bitcoin in relation to national currencies, as a result of a large outflow of funds from the Chinese sector, and this is all due to the fact that last week the Chinese government banned financial organizations from using Bitcoin for any purpose, and now they have appeared information that ordinary people have problems with the withdrawal of funds. And right before these events, a month ago, the US Senate considered Bitcoin, speaking about it in a positive way, which caused at the moment the most significant growth of this currency.
In light of this, operations on the stock exchange are really tidbits, but they still have pitfalls: the attitude of the authorities of various countries to any operations related to Bitcoin, the security of the stock game, which is not caused by any serious rules or laws, ways to get into Fiat, for want of spend bitcoins in the real world in any desired way, and, of course, the overall unpredictability of what is happening.
Finally, the third point is the connection of Bitcoin and real financial interactions in the world. At the moment, with all the desire, to call Bitcoin a common means of payment is impossible. Yes, it can be used somewhere, somehow, here, there, but due to its certain properties, which are slightly lower - it is not widely used yet, and rather serves as an advertisement for the seller, saying "I accept bitcoins - I am modern." This situation is changing, and I believe that there will be an increase in the number of proposals, but at the moment we have what we have.
The main problem that prevents all this from developing is our common human perception of the attractive properties of cryptocurrency: anonymity and uncontrollability (freedom). I will say this - people in the mass simply do not know what to do with anonymity, why it is needed, which brings advantages and threats, everything is very extreme at the level of slogans and there is no ideology. At the moment, the general mood regarding anonymity is first of all “piratbey”, “silkroad”, and “we will show them how to listen to Skype”. Of course, this is all strongly and vital in the light of today's picture of the world, but it is completely insufficient for mass acceptance of the concept at the level of a good, average man in the street - why does a person need anonymity, which is widely replicated in the public mind as “illegal” when a person wants a simple and easy way nothing to do, and a little longer, ”moreover, such a“ freedom ”that goes against the policies of a hypothetical“ state ”also somehow does not warm the ordinary person. Now, if there was some abstract legal service that is useful to people using the principle of anonymity, but without slogans, without politotyh, but simply offering some kind of service that is understandable and necessary to people, some kind of spherical “vkontakt” or “instagram”, “ebay” ”With“ netflix ”, in the end - then yes. Then people might have ceased to correlate anonymity / freedom and crime / illegal, and began to associate them with the banal convenience, their ordinary legitimate right - then that would be useful.
Now to what I meant by the question "what should we, ordinary people" do. Of course, you understand that within the framework of the habr-community, “ordinary people” have their own characteristics - this is a technical, modern mindset, rather technical specialties and skills, and, accordingly, we are talking about them now. Yes, all of the above is true - investments, speculation and purchases, any of us can do all this if you wish. But, remembering the high technical training of readers, I want to propose two ideas, no matter fresh or not, but I am convinced that they are not useless. For the real use of cryptocurrency opportunities, if you are interested in its growth and long-term positive image in the minds of ordinary people, here are two absolutely necessary and relatively real services aimed at the majority of the population:
Yes, I understand the possible skepticism, which is why I do not describe the details of such projects - they can be anything, and conceptually and technically moving away from these two points very far. I do not write about the scheme of work with content owners, producers of goods, and the withdrawal of currency in a convenient / legal form for them, I report that there are difficulties with financial regulators in the country, but I do not consider all this, and I suggest commenting on it and challenge, everything is interesting. It will take off, not take off - it is impossible to predict, but to discuss - it makes sense, and maybe someone is already doing something similar or is looking for an investor, performer. Immediately I say that I did not consider the issue of introducing Bitcoin into ready-made services, simply because in the country there are no such services by and large, but it’s too early for us to talk about the original ebay, alibaba or netflix. I gave only two examples, although in my head there are certainly more, I brought them as massive, and in the future - popular ones.
Also, in my opinion, the main point that is missed in such discussions.
Bitcoin is a very subtle breakthrough of reality that occurred before our eyes. Some couple of years ago, it was a handful of bytes, keys generated on a geek / schoolboy video card, and today it is a “relatively legal currency” that has received the most attention from governments of many states, and a rather serious team of apologists who use Bitcoin in everyday level, whether it be purchases, speculation or investing in the future. It is necessary to clearly understand that Bitcoin crossed the threshold of “just a bubble” - this is not just a bubble of the economic world, yes, we cannot predict its further fate (it can collapse, but cannot disappear), but we must remember that Bitcoin otherwise, there are already a huge number of people who are not going to give it up. That is what I’m talking about, that a giant leap from a “toy” to a real financial instrument has been made, and major financial institutions, serious players in the market of modern technologies, are openly admitting, while in words and on their own financial involvement in the fate of Bitcoin, but there are very few before the actual services on the market appear, large, and ready to work according to the scheme proposed by Satoshi. Therefore, my vision of the situation is that now is a very convenient time to jump on this horse, and, perhaps, to win. Although, I can not absolutely say that the opposite will not happen, but I am sure that with all the risks this is a good investment in the future.
To confirm this position, I will cite a recent CNN report , entitled “Bitcoin Reconstructs the Future of Finance”
In their report on the Le Web conference held a week ago in Paris, they talk about how technology gurus, investors and heads of IT companies speak out for the bright future of Bitcoin and challenge the opinions of critics who highlight the risks associated with digital currency. For example, Fred Wilson, an investor who was one of the first to predict the rise of Twitter and Kickstarter, said that "a lot of new things will happen in the world of finance in the near future, and all this is due to Bitcoin." Further, he continues, comparing the flow of payments, financial transactions on the Internet with the way content is distributed online, with images (with cats, presumably), adding that cryptocurrency is one of the most significant investment trends of the last time that can only be observed . Companies like PayPal, Visa or Mastercard will not control the flow of digital currencies.
In turn, PayPal president David Marcus also supported a positive mood regarding Bitcoin, saying that he also owns several “coins”, and arguing that he can easily imagine Ebay customers paying for purchases of bitcoins, and this is a matter of the near future. However, he adds that for a wider adoption of bitcoin as a unit of exchange, the huge volatility of the cryptocurrency exchange rate should decrease: “Bitcoin is not yet [real] currency and will not become it until its volatility decreases”.
The fact is that the rate of Bitcoin against the dollar on the largest stock exchange Mt.Gox rose this year from $ 13 in January to a peak of $ 1,200 for one bitcoin in December, and is now kept around $ 950 (at the time of publication of the article ), and all this is mostly based on the hope of the supporters of Bitcoin that it will somehow become a legal world currency. For example, Bitcoin received some support from Federal Reserve officials, including its chairman, Ben Bernanke, who said that the currency “may have long-term prospects” within the international payment system.
And in addition to this report, I will give a couple more reviews.
The well-known Winklevoss brothers are early supporters of Bitcoin, but never revealed their capital, but according to rumors - in April 2013 they were holding bitcoins worth $ 11 million (at the rate of about $ 260), that is, currently their wallet can cost up to 30-40 million dollars. One of the brothers, Cameron, recently talked in a special topic in the Bitcoin section on Reddite, where anyone could ask him a question. According to him, now he and his brother are in the process of organizing the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, which will manage their Bitcoin capital and is supposed to bring greater legitimacy of the virtual currency. Documents for the initial public offering were filed in July, but the final decision has not yet been made, therefore, due to the rules, Cameron cannot yet discuss this fund. The twins are very optimistic about Bitcoin, and this is not surprising, for example Cameron, even in cautious estimates, suggests that the price ratio of the dollar to the bitcoin can reach a potentially gigantic figure of 40,000 dollars per coin:
In another response, Cameron refutes the significance of the Silk Road closure, which many have seen as the exclusive use of Bitcoin:
The growth of Bitcoin caused a massive interest in other alternative currencies, such as Litecoin and Quarkcoin, but Cameron said that he and his brother did not see any interest in other cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. When asked if they think that “Bitcoin will replace today's currencies, or will it be used on a par with them, and is it investing in other cryptocurrencies?” Cameron replied:
A few more funny comments, as an example of manipulation of public opinion. On December 5th, in an interview with Alan Grispen, the former chairman of the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve until 2006, in the journal Bloomberg , the question “Is Bitcoin a bubble?” Was answered as follows:
This speech caused a flurry of indignant sarcastic reviews on Twitter and on reddit, where people expressed their attitude to what is happening, and then Grispen was remembered of everything - dotcoms, the collapse of mortgage lending for housing, the 2000 mistake, said "This is not a bubble":
At the end of the article, brief conclusions in the form of theses:
As a result of all of the above, I will write the following: everyone who expects a lot of people to use Bitcoins - it makes sense to invest in related mass types of electronic business, such as exchange services, services and goods delivery sites and the like, thereby increasing both the interest of ordinary customers in using Bitcoin and the strengthening of its “good name” and trust, which will lead to a natural growth of the market of services rendered using Bitcoin, a decrease in its volatility and stability ation rate.
I can not say that Bitcoin is a claim to eternity, but I am convinced that it has a great future. But the most important thing is the future, including in our hands, the hands of users, due to completely new principles of education, distribution and exchange of Bitcoins, including the anonymity of the wallet owner, traceability of all transactions, lack of control over corporations and states, and many other properties that I did not mention - the article does not pretend to fully describe all the principles and possibilities of the network, but describes only the likely economic and social aspects of a completely new and unknown phenomenon - the Cree PTO currencies.
Please report all possible inaccuracies and errors in personal messages.
All of the following does not claim to be absolute, but is the result of a rather long study of the social and economic side of Bitcoin, and at the same time I will try to do without complex formulas and technical details that are very well covered in Habré. This article is a simple reflection, supported by quotes from famous people. It is written in a positive way, and this text can be considered as a response to numerous accusations of the speculative nature of cryptocurrency, its “shadow” side, and also provides an answer to the question of what an ordinary person should do with Bitcoins. If it is interesting to you, welcome under kat.
Bitcoin for people
My deep conviction is that Bitcoin needs no slogans, not revolution with a revolution of consciousness, but a simple and clear concept for most ordinary people to use, such as all major projects / start-ups have, expressed in a couple of phrases and supported by a ready-made mechanism, implementation concept. Now about Bitcoin speak only in the light of "investment" - capital accumulation, the expectation of growth rate, "speculation" - operations on the exchange rate, and "payment" - the use of virtual currency from a virtual wallet as a means of exchange.
')
Fairy-tale stories about investments, about thousands of percent, about “I bought a hundred bucks in 2009, and bought an apartment in 2013” ​​- that’s all, of course, sweet and tempting, but for most people there are only words that can cause a memory bubble and a gold fever. At this level, it is almost impossible to act in isolation from the state, only the state knows and has at its disposal the levers of really massive influence on the mainstream public to take money, which we are seeing now, over the past year - where every bit of government is associated with bitcoins, and the informational hype created inevitably affects the Bitcoin rate, then a great rise, then a discouraging fall. Ordinary people - it is not necessary, sit and be afraid of investment. Everything is so scary. So, for example, right now we are witnessing a large depreciation of Bitcoin in relation to national currencies, as a result of a large outflow of funds from the Chinese sector, and this is all due to the fact that last week the Chinese government banned financial organizations from using Bitcoin for any purpose, and now they have appeared information that ordinary people have problems with the withdrawal of funds. And right before these events, a month ago, the US Senate considered Bitcoin, speaking about it in a positive way, which caused at the moment the most significant growth of this currency.
In light of this, operations on the stock exchange are really tidbits, but they still have pitfalls: the attitude of the authorities of various countries to any operations related to Bitcoin, the security of the stock game, which is not caused by any serious rules or laws, ways to get into Fiat, for want of spend bitcoins in the real world in any desired way, and, of course, the overall unpredictability of what is happening.
Finally, the third point is the connection of Bitcoin and real financial interactions in the world. At the moment, with all the desire, to call Bitcoin a common means of payment is impossible. Yes, it can be used somewhere, somehow, here, there, but due to its certain properties, which are slightly lower - it is not widely used yet, and rather serves as an advertisement for the seller, saying "I accept bitcoins - I am modern." This situation is changing, and I believe that there will be an increase in the number of proposals, but at the moment we have what we have.
The main problem that prevents all this from developing is our common human perception of the attractive properties of cryptocurrency: anonymity and uncontrollability (freedom). I will say this - people in the mass simply do not know what to do with anonymity, why it is needed, which brings advantages and threats, everything is very extreme at the level of slogans and there is no ideology. At the moment, the general mood regarding anonymity is first of all “piratbey”, “silkroad”, and “we will show them how to listen to Skype”. Of course, this is all strongly and vital in the light of today's picture of the world, but it is completely insufficient for mass acceptance of the concept at the level of a good, average man in the street - why does a person need anonymity, which is widely replicated in the public mind as “illegal” when a person wants a simple and easy way nothing to do, and a little longer, ”moreover, such a“ freedom ”that goes against the policies of a hypothetical“ state ”also somehow does not warm the ordinary person. Now, if there was some abstract legal service that is useful to people using the principle of anonymity, but without slogans, without politotyh, but simply offering some kind of service that is understandable and necessary to people, some kind of spherical “vkontakt” or “instagram”, “ebay” ”With“ netflix ”, in the end - then yes. Then people might have ceased to correlate anonymity / freedom and crime / illegal, and began to associate them with the banal convenience, their ordinary legitimate right - then that would be useful.
How to use bitcoin
Now to what I meant by the question "what should we, ordinary people" do. Of course, you understand that within the framework of the habr-community, “ordinary people” have their own characteristics - this is a technical, modern mindset, rather technical specialties and skills, and, accordingly, we are talking about them now. Yes, all of the above is true - investments, speculation and purchases, any of us can do all this if you wish. But, remembering the high technical training of readers, I want to propose two ideas, no matter fresh or not, but I am convinced that they are not useless. For the real use of cryptocurrency opportunities, if you are interested in its growth and long-term positive image in the minds of ordinary people, here are two absolutely necessary and relatively real services aimed at the majority of the population:
- Creating a simple, completely simple, affordable and convenient service (or services) for supplying, for example, legal digital content, such as “netflix” or “aytyuns” - with the ability to pay with Bitcoins.
- Creation of a commodity platform operating with bitcoins - an analogue of “ebay” and “alibaba”, where purchases could be made using this currency.
Yes, I understand the possible skepticism, which is why I do not describe the details of such projects - they can be anything, and conceptually and technically moving away from these two points very far. I do not write about the scheme of work with content owners, producers of goods, and the withdrawal of currency in a convenient / legal form for them, I report that there are difficulties with financial regulators in the country, but I do not consider all this, and I suggest commenting on it and challenge, everything is interesting. It will take off, not take off - it is impossible to predict, but to discuss - it makes sense, and maybe someone is already doing something similar or is looking for an investor, performer. Immediately I say that I did not consider the issue of introducing Bitcoin into ready-made services, simply because in the country there are no such services by and large, but it’s too early for us to talk about the original ebay, alibaba or netflix. I gave only two examples, although in my head there are certainly more, I brought them as massive, and in the future - popular ones.
Also, in my opinion, the main point that is missed in such discussions.
Bitcoin is a very subtle breakthrough of reality that occurred before our eyes. Some couple of years ago, it was a handful of bytes, keys generated on a geek / schoolboy video card, and today it is a “relatively legal currency” that has received the most attention from governments of many states, and a rather serious team of apologists who use Bitcoin in everyday level, whether it be purchases, speculation or investing in the future. It is necessary to clearly understand that Bitcoin crossed the threshold of “just a bubble” - this is not just a bubble of the economic world, yes, we cannot predict its further fate (it can collapse, but cannot disappear), but we must remember that Bitcoin otherwise, there are already a huge number of people who are not going to give it up. That is what I’m talking about, that a giant leap from a “toy” to a real financial instrument has been made, and major financial institutions, serious players in the market of modern technologies, are openly admitting, while in words and on their own financial involvement in the fate of Bitcoin, but there are very few before the actual services on the market appear, large, and ready to work according to the scheme proposed by Satoshi. Therefore, my vision of the situation is that now is a very convenient time to jump on this horse, and, perhaps, to win. Although, I can not absolutely say that the opposite will not happen, but I am sure that with all the risks this is a good investment in the future.
CNN
To confirm this position, I will cite a recent CNN report , entitled “Bitcoin Reconstructs the Future of Finance”
In their report on the Le Web conference held a week ago in Paris, they talk about how technology gurus, investors and heads of IT companies speak out for the bright future of Bitcoin and challenge the opinions of critics who highlight the risks associated with digital currency. For example, Fred Wilson, an investor who was one of the first to predict the rise of Twitter and Kickstarter, said that "a lot of new things will happen in the world of finance in the near future, and all this is due to Bitcoin." Further, he continues, comparing the flow of payments, financial transactions on the Internet with the way content is distributed online, with images (with cats, presumably), adding that cryptocurrency is one of the most significant investment trends of the last time that can only be observed . Companies like PayPal, Visa or Mastercard will not control the flow of digital currencies.
In turn, PayPal president David Marcus also supported a positive mood regarding Bitcoin, saying that he also owns several “coins”, and arguing that he can easily imagine Ebay customers paying for purchases of bitcoins, and this is a matter of the near future. However, he adds that for a wider adoption of bitcoin as a unit of exchange, the huge volatility of the cryptocurrency exchange rate should decrease: “Bitcoin is not yet [real] currency and will not become it until its volatility decreases”.
The fact is that the rate of Bitcoin against the dollar on the largest stock exchange Mt.Gox rose this year from $ 13 in January to a peak of $ 1,200 for one bitcoin in December, and is now kept around $ 950 (at the time of publication of the article ), and all this is mostly based on the hope of the supporters of Bitcoin that it will somehow become a legal world currency. For example, Bitcoin received some support from Federal Reserve officials, including its chairman, Ben Bernanke, who said that the currency “may have long-term prospects” within the international payment system.
Winklevoss brothers
And in addition to this report, I will give a couple more reviews.
The well-known Winklevoss brothers are early supporters of Bitcoin, but never revealed their capital, but according to rumors - in April 2013 they were holding bitcoins worth $ 11 million (at the rate of about $ 260), that is, currently their wallet can cost up to 30-40 million dollars. One of the brothers, Cameron, recently talked in a special topic in the Bitcoin section on Reddite, where anyone could ask him a question. According to him, now he and his brother are in the process of organizing the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust, which will manage their Bitcoin capital and is supposed to bring greater legitimacy of the virtual currency. Documents for the initial public offering were filed in July, but the final decision has not yet been made, therefore, due to the rules, Cameron cannot yet discuss this fund. The twins are very optimistic about Bitcoin, and this is not surprising, for example Cameron, even in cautious estimates, suggests that the price ratio of the dollar to the bitcoin can reach a potentially gigantic figure of 40,000 dollars per coin:
Even not in the most optimistic scenario, Bitcoin can have a capitalization of 400 billion dollars, that is, forty thousand dollars for Bitcoin, but in general, I believe that this amount can be much more. When this happens, if it does happen, I don’t know, but if it does happen, it will most likely be much faster than anyone imagines.
In another response, Cameron refutes the significance of the Silk Road closure, which many have seen as the exclusive use of Bitcoin:
The closure of the SR and the resulting take-off of the course show how little the demand for bitcoin and illegal operations have in common. In any case, SR rather held back the growth of Bitcoin due to the disproportionately bloated, dominant negative image of cryptocurrency.
So, for example, it is estimated that the volume of transactions on this site represented only about 4% of the total volume of bitcoin operations in the blockchain for the entire time period of the site operation.
The growth of Bitcoin caused a massive interest in other alternative currencies, such as Litecoin and Quarkcoin, but Cameron said that he and his brother did not see any interest in other cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin. When asked if they think that “Bitcoin will replace today's currencies, or will it be used on a par with them, and is it investing in other cryptocurrencies?” Cameron replied:
I see bitcoin as an alternative to fiat currencies rather than a substitute. We do not invest in alternative currencies for the reason that I do not believe that any of the problems or difficulties that are supposedly solved by these alternatives cannot be solved within the Bitcoin network itself.
Alan Grispen
A few more funny comments, as an example of manipulation of public opinion. On December 5th, in an interview with Alan Grispen, the former chairman of the board of governors of the US Federal Reserve until 2006, in the journal Bloomberg , the question “Is Bitcoin a bubble?” Was answered as follows:
I think yes. You really have to strain your imagination very much to imagine what is the intrinsic value of Bitcoin. I’m not able to do this, but if you ask me if a bitcoin is a bubble, I’ll answer, yes, it’s a bubble.
This speech caused a flurry of indignant sarcastic reviews on Twitter and on reddit, where people expressed their attitude to what is happening, and then Grispen was remembered of everything - dotcoms, the collapse of mortgage lending for housing, the 2000 mistake, said "This is not a bubble":
"Well, yes, to whom, if not to him, to know about bubbles"
"Grispen called Bitcoin a bubble - it means it will definitely fly up to $ 10,000"
“I’ll hear from Grispen, with much more desire, that Bitcoin is a bubble than the opposite. He never recognized the real bubble - Y2K, loans, etc.
Abstract and conclusion
At the end of the article, brief conclusions in the form of theses:
- Now there are three ways to use Bitcoins for ordinary people - this is "currency as payment", "speculation" and "investment";
- Due to numerous manipulations in the media, the negative image of biktoin appears to the population as “currencies in the shadow economy”;
- Exchange manipulations at the moment do not have any “state” remedies that can discourage people from participating in the exchanges;
- There is no wide and uniquely convenient distribution network for goods and services supplied for Bitcoins;
- Other things being equal - Bitcoin is not a currency, and not “gold”, it is something completely new in the financial world, and nobody has realized the essence of this phenomenon, but there are prerequisites that a very large number of people will use it.
As a result of all of the above, I will write the following: everyone who expects a lot of people to use Bitcoins - it makes sense to invest in related mass types of electronic business, such as exchange services, services and goods delivery sites and the like, thereby increasing both the interest of ordinary customers in using Bitcoin and the strengthening of its “good name” and trust, which will lead to a natural growth of the market of services rendered using Bitcoin, a decrease in its volatility and stability ation rate.
I can not say that Bitcoin is a claim to eternity, but I am convinced that it has a great future. But the most important thing is the future, including in our hands, the hands of users, due to completely new principles of education, distribution and exchange of Bitcoins, including the anonymity of the wallet owner, traceability of all transactions, lack of control over corporations and states, and many other properties that I did not mention - the article does not pretend to fully describe all the principles and possibilities of the network, but describes only the likely economic and social aspects of a completely new and unknown phenomenon - the Cree PTO currencies.
Please report all possible inaccuracies and errors in personal messages.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/206418/
All Articles