CoinSoil.com - growing and nourishing the bitcoin economy (open source, crowd-owned autonomous affiliate network platform)First of all, please excuse my english, I am not a native speaker. Second, the following leaves plenty of room for discussion and different opinions on each matter. The lengthy introduction intends to get the reader thinking. Let's get some brainstorming going and see what we come up with. After all, I still believe we are all on this together.
Ever since I found out about Bitcoin and it’s underlying technology, I’ve been blown away by it’s potential. The technology can be used in so many different ways it’s simply unbelievable.
However, let us not forget, that Bitcoin at it’s core is a network, a protocol and a currency. There would be no network without the protocol and no network without the currency and vice versa (Proof of Work).
So let’s have a closer look at the network, the protocol and the currency.
1) The Network
The existing network is one of Bitcoins biggest strength. The available computing power and invested hardware is enormous. I do not see any decentralized network challenging Bitcoin in this regard anytime soon.
2) The Protocol
Due to it’s open source nature and the very strong and long-lasting community, I believe we have the worlds smartest crypto technicians slowly and carefully enhancing the protocol.
3) The Currency
You all know the current price of Bitcoin and you all know where it is coming from. Due to the Mt.Gox price bubble the network hashrate and difficulty exploded.
As I stated above, the existing network probably is Bitcoins biggest asset, but it’s way too big for the number of transactions (adoption rate) it currently has to handle.
However, just as the price has seen a big correction, the network will adjust accordingly. Miners are already shutting down and/or filling bankruptcy.
But what is the correct price which fuels and regulates the network? Simply speaking..Asks and Bids. One Bitcoin is worth what the market is willing to buy and sell a Bitcoin for. And yes, the possible future value of one Bitcoin is already priced into the current value (leaving technical day traders out of this equation). Bitcoin’s huge volatility expresses the uncertainty of Bitcoins future perfectly. One take on this issue is Pantera Capital’s Bitindex (
https://panteracapital.com/bitindex/).
However, Bitcoin’s long-term success is more tied to growth in adoption and to development of applications which encourage both merchants and consumers to want to use bitcoins.
But while merchants have a direct benefit from using Bitcoin (lower transaction fees, zero to none chargebacks, etc.) why should the general consumer use Bitcoin? There really is no reason or incentive for people in the developed banking world to use Bitcoin. Credit Cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, etc. are working just fine.
This is a real problem, I mean come on, more and more merchants are able to accept Bitcoin through their payment processors with a simple “click” (Braintree, Stripe, etc.). But at the same time merchants are already dropping Bitcoin support due to the lack of consumer adoption ( Wordpress -
http://www.coindesk.com/wordpress-ceo-we-havent-given-up-on-bitcoin/). A perfect chicken-and-egg-dilemma.
The deflationary nature of Bitcoin (as a currency) could therefore very well be it’s downfall unless we find a solution to make spending Bitcoin worth while.
So here is my idea:
An open source and fully crowd-owned autonomous affiliate network platform, in which the users/consumers are shareholders and directly benefit from each and every purchase they make through the platform.
The recent GetGems crowd-funding and general idea behind the project (http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-messenger-app-getgems-raises-400k-waze-investor/) points in the right direction ☺.
I am happy to share further insights, but would love to hear your unbiased opinion/input first.
