Another week, another roundup.
A while back, Andrew asked the question "What have you bought with bitcoin?" There's a good probability that at this point in time, you've already purchased something, a good or a service, with bitcoins. We all know about the ability to pay for hotel rooms and airline tickets, electronics, games, etc. with bitcoins, but leaving the house with just a Bitcoin wallet app on your phone still poses a real challenge for everyday purchases. How do we remedy this? Do you actively promote Bitcoin in your daily transactions? If you do, what kind of feedback are you getting?
So, as it stands, perhaps Bitcoin is still two to three years away from mainstream consumer adoption. Meanwhile, it is being used for some very good causes by you, my fellow cryptocurrency enthusiasts.
Cheryl, LTB's editorial manager, published an article about Daniel Modell, who in his spare time volunteers to help the homeless in his home city of New York. Daniel's ChangeCup NYC is a straightforward project: Send him your spare satoshis and he'll buy coffee for the homeless. Efficient and brilliant.
We've read the blog posts and heard it on previous podcasts: Bitcoin in Africa could be, nay, will be, a game changer. As LTB host Andreas M. Antonopoulos puts it, it's all about the "The Other 6 Billion." Cheryl's second article introduces Chero, a young man living in Sierra Leone. Through Bitcoin, Daniel Modell and his ChangeTip group have given Chero access to a global, frictionless financial system that otherwise would be unreachable using the mostly non-existent legacy banking system of Sierra Leone.
Rob, the host of The Bitcoin Game podcast, is wondering if anyone else is going to the Texas Bitcoin Conference held in Austin TX, March 27-29. If you are willing and able, be sure to join him; perhaps you'll even get some airtime on his show!
Rob also conducted a fascinating interview with Jaime Cochran, a hacker-turn-security-engineer. To my surprise, Jaime's comment about Linux being the easiest operating system to hack (due to legacy software and lingering bugs) -- gasp! -- brought no flame fest to our forums, as it did to a popular "hacker" Facebook page. So kudos to all of you who've kept things civilized.
On a serious note, though, the debate about the security of open-source software is an important one. Open-source software, in general, often suffers from lack of funding and full-time professional contributors. Fortunately, Bitcoin and associated projects and platforms are mostly well-funded, and have no problem attracting the brightest and the most talented people.
From the aftermath of the San Francisco Bitcoin Developer Conference held this past January, Andrew has introduced the Lightning Network, a project hoping to solve Bitcoin's scaleability problem, as a potential show topic or interview.
Devon, one of Tokenly's main developers, is running for one of three Counterparty Foundation Community Director positions. Voting ends April 2nd, so be sure to cast your vote by then!
On the backend of things, Nick has introduced updates to the LTB Community Directory.
Some of the neat new features include:
- A search tool for easily finding a user by their username
- "Offline" and "recently online" indicator icons for each user
- User stats and history for forum and article posts
- Rankings
And finally, some random numbers:
- 51% of our community accesses the LTB Network using Chrome browser -- a 51% attack?
- Almost 3% still use Internet Explorer, which is being phased out. Switch now!
- 7% of LTB Network visitors come from Ukraine -- zdrastuy!
- At the time of writing, 1 BTC buys 1,666,666 LTBc (Poloniex)
Be excellent to each other,
Tuomas
LTB Community Manager
via Lets Talk Bitcoin! http://ift.tt/1MULyRw
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