I remember in 2013 during the Software Freedom Day at Boracay, we had a good discussion with some of my colleagues about BITCOIN. We tagged this technology as a NEW MASTERPIECE in the digital world that will provide Freedom in Payment. It was technically perfect and this can be a big thing for Filipinos here and abroad. Two weeks ago (first week of December 2014), I had a good discussion about BITCOIN, Stellar and Ripple with one of my close friends and mentors, Mr. B Bulatao at St. Patricks Square and we agreed that this technology brings "THE INTERNET OF VALUE". We know that it will surely create BUZZ and WOW in this new age.
We even had a film showing at our "Open Source Museum" about the Rise and Rise of Bitcoin and invited some friends and members of open source community here in the Philippines so that we can all have a good understanding about it. This also gave us a chance to meet new friends in the IT industry.
It seems that there are lots of beautiful things about this technology that you can call decentralized global ledgers. But for me, at the onset, what gives more excitement in the digital currency world is the fact that it has no central operator, thus creating borderless possibilities we can only imagine. I believe that this will lead to global adoption. These past few months, we've been busy doing hackathons, playing and doing gateway that is based on litecoin, bitcoin and ripple (altcoin). The experience gave us more information on how cryptocurrency works in the real world. We are amazed that the information is very transparent and it only requires very low fees for the users.
Believe in Cryptocurrency
I remember that I have done some talks in school about Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency. I shared things to students about Math based currency, Mining, Control and Security, Proof of Work and of course, the BLOCKCHAIN. *I know that some of the students still can't grasp most of the things that I'm saying. But for some, I believe that we have triggered a good interest. Some basic questions popped-up during the seminars and knowledge sharing. Such as:
-How can we get Bitcoin?
-What is Ripple?
-How can we start Bitcoin/Can we also do the mining?
-What is the best cryptocurrency as of the moment?
-Etc...
There are lots of notion that no one will adopt this as this is used for Drugs, Money Laundering and illegal activities. What more can I say? Read more and be more! Just like cars and fiat currency and others, we cannot be sure that these things will not be used for negative purposes. What we should focus more on is to identify how this new technology can help the humankind and the next generation and how this can be an instrument in making things as simple as possible.
This is why awareness, technical meetup and discussion should be more frequent especially in schools. Students, government and other professionals should be educated about this technology. *THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS that can be developed and created on top of this platform. Hopefully, the believers will increase the soonest time possible.
Circulation and Awareness Issue
One of the greatest problems that all of the cryptocurrency players encounter is the "circulation" How can users understand and adopt it to be part of their daily lives? As of this moment, I'm still in that stage too, thinking and creatively creating an ecosystem so that adoption will be very fast. This will be a very good challenge especially in the Philippines as many of us here don't even have good internet connection.
I would like to share some simple tips on how we can engage ourselves on this technology.:
1. Creating a wallet and understand how it really works can be a good start for this.
2. Going to meetups to hear insights about Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency platforms.
3. Building a gateway and integrate it to other gateways. (This one is for the technical guys)
4. Start using the technology. (Buy-n-Sell can be a good choice for this)
5. Start sharing experiences to others. (schools, communities, etc.)
6. Do some partnerships and collaborations.
Slowly, I believe that we Filipinos are moving on to this arena. Hopefully, there should be good cryptocurrency providers that will emerge too. I can't wait to see all of us paying our bills using this technologies in the near future.
At the end of the day, I would like to express my gratitude to Mr. Satoshi Nakamoto for opening us to this new world and Thank you cryptocurrency communities for evolving the idea and trying to make these things possible for everyone.
Conclusion
*Engaging in this new radar of softwares/technologies can be a good start and will spark your interest on this arena. Borderless possibilities are just waiting to happen. People should start solving and creating roadmap on how to solve circulation issues and make this platform standard. There should be a good adoption strategy and collaboration among developers and end-users.
https://bitcoin.org/en/
http://bitcoindoc.com/
https://litecoin.org/
https://www.stellar.org/
https://ripple.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptocurrency
https://ripple.com/tag/math-based-currency/
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