Posted on 27/12/2017, 9:37 pm, by Colin Charles, under
Tech.
Cryptocurrencies? Blockchains? I’m sure you’ve heard of them before by now, unless you’re living under a rock. I’m an open source & database guy, so for me, I look at all this with a fine toothed comb. Probably doesn’t help that I enjoy reading the FT on a daily basis. Anyway, a selection of links… You may not be able to read all the links (subscriber only), but maybe I’ll think about something new come 2018.
- Markets signal diminishing faith in US government – “Big things happen if someone invents the right story and promulgates it.” – Robert Shiller, author Irrational Exuberance. He called the dotcom and US housing bubbles bursting before it happened; he now calls Bitcoin a bubble
- Bitcoin swings from bull to bear and back in a day – when Bitcoin hit an all-time high of a little over USD$11,000! “It is a classic bubble, and bubbles go up a lot. It is a mania and the best thing about it is you can’t value it, like trading technology stocks in the ’90s.” – Rich Ross, head of technical analysis, Evercore. “Every three weeks it goes up, people take profits and then it goes down but money is still coming in so it will keep going up,” said David Drake, managing a family office investing in Bitcoin
- There are many reasons to be cautious about bitcoin – Jean Tirole on the ICO craze
- FT Lex: Bitcoin: a poxy currency – learned a new word today, poxy. Thinking in terms of hyper-deflation makes the mania easier to treat.
- FT Alphaville: Bitcoin’s fractioning problem
- Listen: Should investors buy Bitcoin? – FT Money presenter Claer Barrett and guests discuss whether or not Bitcoin deserves a place in your investment portfolio. Good podcast.
- Busting the myth that bitcoin is actually an efficient payment mechanism – yes, it is expensive to use. Not the standard take on “energy use” either. FT Alphaville only requires registration for free reading BTW
- Bitcoin and cash cast a shadow over banks
- CryptoKitties – digital pets, Ethereum’s first real use case?
- Hacker News: Is Bitcoin surge driven by paid-publicity (similar to US election story)?
- Sixty free lectures from Princeton on bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Avg length ~15 mins. Links in post.
- A beginner’s guide to getting started in the cryptocurrency world
- Why a Bitcoin Fork Is Not a ‘Stock Split’
- How To Sell Bitcoins in Canada
- Don’t fall for the hype – Why Bitcoin’s $10,000 Price Doesn’t Reflect Its True Value.
- Initial coin offerings: investing’s wild frontier
- Is Proof of Stake really the solution?
- The Token Handbook – its basically a book, lots to read here
Posted on 7/7/2016, 5:45 am, by Colin Charles, under
General.
As videos go, I enjoyed the short and sweet Panel on The Evolution of Bitcoin held at Goldman Sachs.
Bitcoin selling points by Balaji Srinivasan, CEO of 21 Inc and Board Partner at a16z:
- packet based money
- protocol
- unified way of transferring value
- every entity can have a bitcoin wallet
- four-sided network: miners, developers, merchants, users
I highly recommend watching the video.
This is more for me, rather than anyone else (just like everything here), but its worth keeping track of the Bitcoin scene in Malaysia (at a time when Bitcoin is tanking).
For Bitcoin news, its Bitcoin Malaysia – its no CoinDesk, but the founder, Colbert Lau, does evangelise Bitcoin quite a lot. It is from there, I learned that BolehVPN, probably the most popular VPN service in Malaysia, accepts Bitcoin. Or that a petrol station accepts Bitcoin too.
Then there are Arsyan Ismail’s list of startups, notably a Bitcoin Exchange Malaysia, ked.ai (a marketplace), cryptomarket.my (a market/exchange). I’m not sure what the focus of these companies are (many look like minimum viable products).
Then what I think is the most interesting Bitcoin-related startup focusing on the blockchain? Neuroware (disclosure: I have been talking a lot to one of the founders and may end up advising the company). They focus on blockchain technology, and keep track of Bitcoin, Dogecoin and Litecoin. They have blockchains.io (similar to Blockchain.info but opensource). They also have their main product: blockstrap – a HTML5 framework, also opensource. There are some good articles at Digital News Asia: Neuroware: New bit on the blockchain and Coindesk: Neuroware Launches ‘Future-Proof’ API for Cryptocurrency Apps.
Will we see more people accept Bitcoin? Will there be Bitcoin ATMs (there was one in Bangsar Shopping Centre but it has since closed)? It should be interesting to see how Bitcoin and the blockchain itself evolves in 2015.
News today: Genneva (gold trading company, launched by former Prime Minister Mahathir) Malaysia director charged with accepting deposits without a license.
So if you’re thinking of a Bitcoin exchange in Malaysia, think again. Bank Negara Malaysia obviously doesn’t think much of Bitcoin. How will you accept deposits without a license?
Singapore on the other hand proves itself to be in the forefront of finance: treat Bitcoin like a product. Read the full IRAS statement. Singapore is about to get its first Bitcoin ATM soon.
For further reading, see the BAFIA 1989, in its entirety. Once again, laws that prevent innovation.
