Why You Can’t Use Your Bitcoins To Buy Weapons (anymore)

13

September

2016

5/5 (8)

Bitcoins have been a hot topic since its release in 2010.  The value of the coin has been in a roller coaster ever since. It was initially sold for 0.008$ per coin and peaked in November 2013 when it was sold for $1,240 per coin. Currently, a bitcoin is worth a little over $600.

Besides being a famous fluctuating currency,  it had the dubious honour of being the world’s worst-performing currency in 2014,  Bitcoins are also subject of discussion because there is the common belief that Bitcoins are anonymously and people can use them to buy anything from anyone online. However, recent research found that bitcoins aren’t completely anonymous, but pseudonymous. But what does this actually mean?

Researchers from the University of California and George Mason found that you can own a Bitcoin without anyone knowing that it is yours, but as soon as you move the Bitcoin, you are leaving a digital trail of breadcrumbs. Every transaction is even recorded in a public ledger, which was initially created to check if people weren’t using the same coin twice.

The trail of digital breadcrumbs has always been there, and following the trail would only lead to an online pseudonym, which can’t be traced back to a real person. However, in 2013 the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an agency within the US Treasury Department, took initiative to tackle this problem and under new laws, if a person wishes to convert Bitcoins to US dollars the users identity must verified. Of course, there is always the opportunity to use illegitimate exchange services like BitLaundry and BitMix to convert your bitcoins to US dollars, but these companies do not have the capacity to process large-scale transactions.

What do you think the future of Bitcoin will look like? Will it be an ongoing game of cat and mouse between law enforcement and anonymous criminals hiding out on the dark net? Or will it actually become an accepted currency to buy legitimate stuff online?

 

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The End Of An Era

12

September

2016

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We have seen it with social networks like MySpace or Hyves, gaining a lot of users in a short period of time, and then abruptly die off. MySpace was acquired in 2005 by News Corporation for over $580 million and surpassed Google in 2006 as most visited website in the United States. As of April 2016 MySpace, the former social media king, was ranked on place 1,747 of that same list. But will Facebook follow the same path as MySpace or Hyves?

I believe it will. A research led by the GlobalWebIndex showed that there is a strong decline in active Facebook users. To be more specific, there has been a 52% drop of active Facebook users in the age of 16-19 in the Netherlands. This is a substantial decline but also one that is mirrored globally. Countries such as Malaysia (-45%), France (-44%) and Mexico (-34%) demonstrate that Facebooks teen decline is global and happening on all continents. The declining activity on the News Feed should be very concerning for the company. It is the lifeblood of Facebook, given that is where all the ads are displayed. But where did all the active users go?

Facebook is being defeated by Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, like Facebook defeated MySpace in 2008. These social network platforms are growing rapidly and are using less ads than its competitor, Facebook. I believe that the ads are scaring the people away. Facebook even introduced a new algorithm which gives active users even more ads as they can endure more advertisements, according to Facebook. This contradicts with some fundamentals of business, where loyal customers are rewarded rather than punished for being active.
What is your opinion? Are you still as active on Facebook as you were a couple of years ago? Are you also tired of a News Feed with personalized advertisement and videos of cats?

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