Bitcoin: Inspired by Thomas Edison?

Bitcoin Inspired by Thomas Edison? Edison's 'Renegade' Currency Plan A University of Washington (Tacoma) paper In 1922, Edison designed a " 'commodity reserve' monetary plan ... to guarantee price stability" to benefit farmers UW TACOMA "Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is Farmers could store recently- an invention of harvested commodities in a Satan." government warehouse They receive a mortgage certificate as a receipt, and an equity certificate for ownership %3D The mortgage certificate could be used at National INATIONAL RANK Bank to 50% the value of the stored commoditiy, based on 25-year ave price To retrieve the commodity, the farmer would present the equity certificate and 50% of the equity's cash value 24 Like Bitcoin, Edison's system shunned the basis of a gold-backed currency and debt- based money Digital Currency: Facts & Figures Bitcoin Bitcoin, which appeared in 2009, is the most commonly used digital currency Allegedly created by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin is international, and requires a network of contributors to keep though theories abound as to his 'real' identity it decentralized Top Holders Satoshi Nakamoto 1,150,000 Bitcoin is not debt-based, nor is it 'backed' by anything Bitcoins are created at a rate of approximately 25 every 10 minutes. Only about 21 million will ever - just as gold is not be created US Justice Dept. (seized: Silk Road) Exante Bitcoin (a Maltese Hedge Fund) Investment Trust 144,000 53,000 80,000 Alternatives MintChip Litecoin actually surpassed Bitcoin's ROI in 2013: One short-lived alternative, The Royal Canadian MInt launched their own Coinye, featured a charicature of rapper Kanye West currency, called 'Mintchip, in 2012 328x vs. Bitcoin's 95x The Bitcoin Market US has 21 startups with a total funding Bitcoin $88m Startups Worldwide of over $74m $74m 334 (early 2014) $31m 34 Venture capital, seed funds, and crowdfunding with listed funds totalling just over $88m In the US, Coinbase tops the list with $31m of all listed funding listed в In second place Australia, Korea, Singapore each have 2 funded startups. Both Canada and China have at least one startup company whose product or service is bitcoin-related, despite the fact that neither country recognizes bitcoins as legal tender. Bitcoin Benefits Transaction info cannot be stolen. Only an encoded address and the amount Cannot be modified without community concensus are recorded Approx. 1000 businesses and over 35k online merchants accept bitcoins (Nov. 2013) The value of a bitcoin has increased greatly; it's now approximately $1000 Downsides of Bitcoin Losing the private key to your bitcoin wallet could mean losing your holdings permanently Bitcoins can be lost, stolen, or destroyed Transactions can take up to 10 minutes, making point-of-sale transactions impractical Some countries (UK, Austrailia, South Africa) have mandatory key disclosure laws Currently, no easy way to track heists, fraud protection and chargebacks not built into the system The potential exists to use bitcoin for speculation, money laundering, and 'double-spending Some Bitcoin Transactions to date CHICAGO SUN-TIMES.com Online access MIRS Paying the IRS using SnapCard bill payment service Hockey Tickets Space flight on Virgin Galactic WordPress.com upgrades Tesla S (a $100+k electric car) Baked goods HD College tuition In-game purchases (England FARMVILLE and Cyprus) zynga How Do You Get Bitcoins? Buy bitcoins through a Bitcoin exchange Purchase through a Bitcoin ATM Get paid in bitcoins - often for online transactions 'Mine' bitcoins, with special software or hardware RoboCoin Brought to you by: topcomputersciencedegrees.com https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Satoshi_Nakamoto http://bitcoin.knackhq.com/btcdb http://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-edison-inventions-light-bulb-and-30-more?op=1 http://www.buzzfeed.com/mariahsummers/the-16-most-important-bitcoinaires http://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2013/11/12/winklevoss-twins-say-bitcoin-market-to-hit-40ob-urge-regulators- not-to-push-innovation-to-china/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/ http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/bitcoin-questions/ http://moneymorning.com/2013/11/22/why-virtual-currency-is-here-to-stay-bitcoin-or-no-bitcoin/ http://www.policymic.com/articles/76453/how-bitcoin-works-in-5-easy-steps http://qz.com/150946/as-bitcoin-booms-so-does-bitcoin-bank-robbery/ http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/snapcard-lets-you-pay-the-irs-with-bitcoin/ https://vimeo.com/63502573 http://faculty.washington.edu/dtwills/resources/Edisons-Monetary-Option.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Edison http://blogs.wsj.com/ St B. Virain