Personal Post 4 (Bitcoin)

I want to talk about an article I read in Wired magazine in this post. It was about something I had never heard of before this. A service and form of currency called Bitcoin. It suffered and still suffers from some of the problems we have been having a lot with trying to integrate social media and new technologies into the existing risk management techniques. Bitcoin itself is a completely digital currency. The big problem with digital currency up to this point was how do you prevent double spending and "one man" supposedly solved that problem with his algorithm and Bitcoin was born.

This currency had no real value when it first started out. It was an idealist movement to try and get away from the establishment of government and to try and make a money that was not reliant on a government of any sort. There was regulated growth of Bitcoins the currency and all seemed to be going swimmingly. There was a devoted passionate core group of people who used the service but they started making waves. They wanted wikileaks to begin accepting donations in Bitcoin. Their founder said not to do this that it was a bad idea because it would make the organization grow too fast and taint it. Unfortunately the damage was done. Through hype of many sorts, articles in Forbes and glowing endorsements online the price or a Bitcoin the virtual currency soared to over $27 in real money at one point. Actual placed began accepting Bitcoin transactions for things and people started to try and safeguard their investment.

The code was flawless, the users on the other hand very much flawed. Users started to try and back up their virtual wallets which essentially doubled or tripled the amount of Bitcoin's they had. Also their were third party services "wallets" like banks for Bitcoin but one by one they seemed to go down or loose peoples real investments in this potentially real currency. The bottom fell out and is still falling out on Bitcoin but the point I wanted to make with this is that I understand where the organizations we have had come in to speak us are coming from. I see their fear of new technologies proven and unproven.


Things can always be used for nefarious purposes and things may not always live up to the hype. Bitcoin is a perfect example of both of these. The organizations do not know if these new and trendy technologies will be there tomorrow and there is a sense of fear in trying to find uses for something that never really seems to have a definite shape and keeps evolving and growing. They need a sense of stability cause what they do helps save lives. I think this is a prime example of their skepticism. While it may not apply fully I can think of no better reason for them to double take when it comes to technology and reading this article has made me see that as much as they want to they can't unless it is practical, secure and serves a purpose which can take years to determine. You can't take a leap of faith when lives are at stake which means I and everyone else needs to be patient.

If you would like to learn more about Bitcoin here is a very reliable source, their wiki.