[hackerspaces] bitcoin

[Yves Quemener]

On 04/06/2011 11:20 PM, Justis Peters wrote:
> On 04/05/2011 05:29 PM, Yves Quemener wrote:
>> If you don't know what bitcoin is or dismissed it like I did one year
>> ago because it looked like a pyramidal scheme, look again.
> This is exactly why I dismissed it. Can you make a further case as to
> why we should look again?

The Ponzi part was actually a way of distributing the initial amount of 
wealth and giving people an incentive to participate so there is a 
ponzi-like part, but there is also another part : It is actually a good 
protocol to maintain a register of transactions that is 100% distributed 
with no single point of failure and that is resistant to counterfeiting. 
Also there will never be more than 21 millions bitcoins in circulation, 
that is an important characteristic : the value can go down because 
people do not trust it but not because a central authority hided the 
number of BTCs really in circulation.

Most of the BTCs enthusiasts are now conscious that people "mining" BTCs 
and not using them are a danger to that economy and that the current 
rate (0.8$ for 1 BTC)  is probably way too high due to speculation.

Now is a good time to begin using it as a currency to buy dematerialized 
goods : hosting, CPU cycles, development, web design, music, artwork, 
donations, etc... There are currently no legal framework for a small 
group of international enthusiast to exist and manage funds together. 
Bitcoin aims at doing that.

There are currently 7 millions BTCs in circulation and that is supposed 
to be a $5.6 millions but I doubt that more than a few hundreds dollars 
worth are exchanged each day, so the value will probably go down 
dramatically. But even after that event, it will still be a transaction 
system that works and that allows micro-transactions (A BTC can be 
divided in 10e6 parts).

I am willing to participate in this tentative economical hack and will 
begin to accept BTCs soon in my activity as a freelance developer.

Iv