Bitcoin, by Jesse Greenfield

4 Responses to "Bitcoin, by Jesse Greenfield"

Eric Martocci says:

May 10, 2014 at 6:18 pm

I had no idea something like this even existed. The concept of bitcoin seems very volatile and pointless. I can understand the point of being spied on by the government. I do not fully agree with this either. The concept of use for illegal activity still appears to have a greater draw than anything else. The pie chart that you show could be used as evidence toward this. Why would 47 individuals hold such a high percentage of bitcoins?
I am not sure I understand it completely, but it seems to me that the simple fact that you can receive bitcoins, which are not taxable currency, for allowing your computer to do processing work is illegal in itself, unless the person reports it on their taxes. This would fall under the same thing as being paid cash by your employer for your wages and not reporting it. Other than the retailer not paying processing fees for a credit card I do not see any advantage to this whole concept. Maybe I am just getting old.
If I had to criticize anything with the presentation it would have to be the dead spots in the narration. Almost every slide has several seconds of silence at the end of it. Otherwise it was very informative. Nice job.

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Ethan Ossolinski says:

May 11, 2014 at 4:32 pm

Bitcoin and other online currencies are very interesting in that for the most part they have grown up under the radar. I thought you addressed the vulnerabilities that are associated with Bitcoin and the government very well. You addressed both sides and by doing so expressed Kranzberg’s first law proving in a way that bitcoin like many other technologies are successful only in the way that the society they’re spawned in receive them. I think that this fact will determine the future of Bitcoin. I don’t see the government backing down off online currency’s backs anytime soon. All in all it was a nicely done slide-cast. The only recommendation that I have is that you could have gone into a little bit more depth into some of the other online currencies because there are some other interesting alternative currencies out on the online market.

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Daniela de Lucio says:

May 12, 2014 at 11:05 am

I think that the concept of bitcoin is really interesting. It’s definitely a topic that has been buzzing around in recent times so I thought it was a cool topic to look into. I think you did a great job exploring and presenting the topic. The way that you went about the topic was very well done- I really liked the format that you presented it with how it was made to what it exactly is to why it is such a big deal/controversies. I think that you could have added maybe a little more to avoid awkward pauses in between the slides, but other than that I thought the presentation was great as a whole. It was also very visually appealing, which is definitely a plus.

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Sean Burke says:

May 12, 2014 at 2:39 pm

I learned a lot about bitcoins from this slidecast. I think you did a good job of not just describing bitcoins and how it works, but also their historical context and how themes from this class relate to bitcoins. For example, you explained that while bitcoins may be a new technology, the idea of free market and having a currency that is independent from a federal government has been around for centuries. One thing that could have been elaborated on a bit more is the idea of “Is this progress?” This slidecast definitely makes you think about the moral implications of bitcoin, and how this will affect business in the future. I wonder if there could be a way the government could tax and regulate bitcoin. If they did, that would defeat the purpose of bitcoin though. Do we trust bitcoin? I also thought it was very relevant to bring about the facts about the distribution of bitcoin wealth, because of Occupy Wall Street and the 99% vs 1% movement.

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