<nettime> Now also bankers know what bitcoins are
Jaromil
jaromil at dyne.org
Thu Apr 7 04:26:43 PDT 2011
re all,
FYI: http://www.dyndy.net/2011/04/bitcoin-presented-to-the-old-world/
Bitcoin presented to the Old-world
Posted on Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Filed under Conference, Currency
Tagged with cash, crypto, P2P, public
Related articles:
* [23]Action in London, Revolutionary Credit Cards
* [24]Process Ecology: the lesson from Nature for assessing the
Monetary System
Just back from the 10th edition of the [25]EPCA conference held in
Amsterdam, where I was a shoulder for my friend Genjix: bitcoin
developers were invited to talk about [26]Bitcoin to a specialized
audience of mostly >50 years old banker types in suits, with very few
exceptions.
Genjix presenting bitcoin in EPCA2011
The incipit of the conference booklet recites: bOver 200 transaction
services professionals from all over the world will attend, discuss and
experience this leading platform. For the last 10 years we have been on
top of trends and developments in payments. We focus in particular on
strategic innovation and break-through developments in on-line
transactionsb. And in fact it looked pretty well populated for that
kind of context: besides the white-male-with-suits first scary
impression, especially for those who value variety, from the written
documentation available (I havenbt attended talks) one can tell these
people run quite some businesses b at least they did until now <g>- and
quite successfully.
The brochures of the conference talk about transaction systems,
RFID/NFC payment devices and all flavors of bank related products along
the names of bMobile Moneyb, bSecure SDb, bePassportb and bAutomated
Fare Collectionb.
Our guy Genjix is a colorful and open minded type, witty and messy, a
good mix that entertained the people present despite it being the last
presentation of the day; he did a good (unpaid) job presenting some
quite impressive information on the growth and usage of Bitcoin, making
people present progressively interested (or pissed, but then hard to
notice behind the suits) at this crypto-cash system that seems to be
there to stay or, one could argue, to multiply in different flavors in
the near future.
bBeing shown an anonymous digital currency with its own laundering
service. Used for selling drugs. Bit-coin, you have cheered me up.b
Michael Price
The presentation didnbt hide even the most controversial aspects of
bitcoin, pointing out to some very extreme usage: something that seemed
to relieve the audience, considering that banker types are pretty
beaten up by corporate ethics evangelists nowadays. In such cases
Bitcoin tends to show that anonymity is used in the bworstb way, which
is still half of the story. We are still far from developing a positive
narrative on anonymity and continuing on this track will likely move
policy makers into massive identification campaigns, as it has been now
since the 9/11 sad facts.
Still on the good side for bitcoin is its working implementation of a
distributed system relying on an bopen source algorithmic contractb:
something definitely inspiring that knocks off the hegemony of
old-world currencies b and one can hardly imagine how theybll ever
recover from this manifest process ultimately due to the unstoppable,
immanent influence of the digital dimension.
Bitcoin is a messenger and the message it carries doesnbt originates
even from a person, or a group of people, not even an organization or a
company: itbs a Geist (or Zeitgeist, should we say) that impersonates
the ultimate dissolution of centralized governance: everything that was
solid melts into thin air, should we mourn once again, while all those
who were on the deregulation train in 1984 have now to face their kids
reminding them how their World is made of lies b and dreams,
apparently, still alive.
Following a materialist point of view (and crypto-agnostic, webll
argue) bitcoin can surely be interpreted as a [27]Rube-Goldberg machine
for buying electricity b and this was even our very first reaction at
DYNDY when we got to know it the first time. Surely these are times
when materialism is needed, as opposed to more abstract financial
blabbering, but then consider that the processing power in bitcoin
serves to strengthen the network authentication: all that electricity
is energy invested by participants to enforce the integrity of the
network. Now consider how old monetary systems keep their integrity: a
huge government building with armed guards along the perimeter, to not
even mention the huge investment of resources and infrastructure to
distribute this money (street level access) and authenticate it at
transaction time. Remember prof. Greco? webve been talking about thisb&
Bitcoin is a bdisruptive technologyb, but disruptive for whom? as a
human creation, it inherits human problems that are also present in
older systems; still P2P currencies as bitcoin let us save energy
rather than consume more, also substituting the violence of armed
guards with agile and cryptographic communications.
Ultimately, the positive message that bitcoin also carries is that of
more possibilities in engineering currencies, that of a future in which
complementary currencies can make economic systems more resilient to
the the disruption of capitalist behaviors, while closely relating
people to their community values and maybe even revolutionize the way
we contribute to the common good b paying taxes for what we really
care, rather than not paying them, let me add.
Quoting Wei Dai in [28]one of bitcoinbs founding texts: bItbs a
community where the threat of violence is impotent because violence is
impossible, and violence is impossible because its participants cannot
be linked to their true names or physical locations. Until now itbs not
clear, even theoretically, how such a community could operate. A
community is defined by the cooperation of its participants, and
efficient cooperation requires a medium of exchange (money) and a way
to enforce contracts.b
Now Ibm wondering how people present at the EPCA 2011 conference feel,
threatened or pleased by this epiphany? in either case it might be
interesting to watch reactions. The transaction products I read of are
stacking on technological complexity and seamless design that is
ultimately undermining the very possibility for people to trust them.
On top of that now there are on-line grass-root communities actively
building new systems in a decentralized fashion. Will the monopoly of
violence enter this game to defend the old-system, despite the
squeaking sounds of its carcass, the diffused lack of trust for old
hierarchies and the lack for collective agency within its cheated
rules? We will see where this ends up: after all today it felt like one
of those historical days marked by such a talk made by a little
provocative guy wearing a t-shirt and nail polish speaking in front of
a old and well dressed audience b but then no-one was really scared.
IRC excerpt from #bitcoin-dev during the conference:
<jaromil> sirius-m: i'd expect some more fashion happening
<topi`> jaro: they just don't know how :)
<sirius-m> thanks for being there, it's a new important audience for bitcoin
<sirius-m> people who otherwise might not hear about the project
<jaromil> true but knowing the types i think they are thinking how to fork it in
their own advantage
<jaromil> prolly wasted effort
<topi`> at least they start talking about it:)
<topi`> good luck finding ways to exploit the system
<krytzz> hopefully they cant fork the network
<krytzz> only could start a seperate one :(
<sirius-m> nah, it's good that you're spreading the word :)
<topi`> if there *will* be some threat coming from corporate sector, then we'll
finally find out how resilient the whole architecture is :)
Like this article? Donate BTC :^D
1GJehYZs5BZfL4RTCBFUpTVrjX6XRhDWdq
* Comments open on the DYNDY article website
http://www.dyndy.net/2011/04/bitcoin-presented-to-the-old-world/
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B) 2010-2011 GNU FDL
dyne.org foundation
References
Visible links
23. http://www.dyndy.net/2011/03/action-in-london-revolutionary-credit-cards/
24. http://www.dyndy.net/2011/03/the-analogy-with-process-ecology-for-assessing-the-monetary-system/
25. http://www.epcaconference.com/
26. http://bitcoin.org/
27. http://trustcurrency.blogspot.com/2011/03/bitcoin-rube-goldberg-machine-for.html
28. http://weidai.com/bmoney.txt
Hidden links:
88. http://www.dyndy.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/genjix_bitcoin_epca11.jpg
89. http://www.dyndy.net/wp-content/pdf/newspaper.pdf
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