Wally F

Digital currency in the general sense, cryptocurrency in the general sense, does not solve the problem of inflation and hidden taxes in that way. Bitcoin, in a large way, makes it more predictable, in that it has a predictable low rate of inflation, which is constantly decreasing. But as you say, the problem when we talk about everybody moving to digital currencies, we know the bitcoin network doesn't support throughput. Unfortunately, the bitcoin network, as it exists, does not provide the privacy and protections really necessary for these kinds of transactions at scale.

The single most important feature of Bitcoin is the fact that it is thermodynamically sound. Bitcoin is a closed thermodynamic system with no more than 21 million coins. You can't add or remove coins other than losing them. It's a deflationary system, and all you can do is add energy to it or take energy away from it. So, you can either heat it or cool it down. What is compelling about Bitcoin is that it is the first sound monetary network invented in the history of the world. I view it as a monetary energy network that can collect, store, and channel monetary energy and space over time without power loss. Energy means you could put money in it and hold it for a decade or 100 years. Over space means it's 1:1000 to 1:10 000 of the energy required to move gold or other sources of monetary energy. Therefore, it is a highly efficient monetary network. That's what's compelling.

In the game industry, you have 3 traditional business models for monetization strategy developers use to drive revenue. One is you purchase the full game right away; you buy a game in a box or online and download it to play it without any additional purchase. Thus, you get the full game straight away. That used to be console games you would buy for around 60 dollars. You would play it, finish it, and that was it.

Working for a media platform in the Crypto space has been an interesting experience. I have been with Bitcoin Magazine for 5 years, and we have had some exciting years so far. We have seen a couple of price surges, all the scaling wars, and many phases more. Now, I have also drifted into the role of a historian, becoming a little bit of a Bitcoin historian. Thus, I would say I have changed and grown as a person and a writer. It's nice that I can drift into different types of areas. In that sense, the Bitcoin Magazine team has given me a lot of freedom to follow and write about my interests.

Hacking has become a trend online. There are a lot of forums and platforms, especially a very big Russian forum where you can do a course on how to hack an individual. Thus, a lot of 14~15-year-old children do those courses, and after a couple of months, they start hacking and attacking people online. Unfortunately, it is reality. Today, you can find anything on the internet. In the Russian language, such online sites and such promotions are not banned. There are ways to ban such websites, but no one is doing anything about it. Then authorities do not consider such issues, similar incidents will happen in all countries around the world.

NFT, Non-Fungible Token, is a token standard. The main feature of an NFT is that it has a unique ID. If you mint an NFT, you will have a unique ID for a given set of data. You will be able to see specifically who is using the specific token, and where it is. If I sent it to you, you will also be able to track that it has been transferred. Thus, the unique ID of the NFT is why it is interesting for art and the art world. NFT’s provide provenance, meaning it makes it possible to track its history. You can see who has ever owned the art piece, when it was created, is it the real piece or not, etc. By confirming that, we can reduce the amount of forgery which is pretty prevalent in art.

Historically, there has been currency devaluation where governments have printed a massive amount of money, or they have a prolonged period of interest rates being below the inflation rate. So, they slowly chip away your wealth over time. In those periods, those scarcer assets tend to do very well. Thus, whether it is gold, silver, equities. real estate or in this case Bitcoin, I think going back to the history of fiat devaluation and why they tend to happen, why they don’t happen in some periods but do in other time frames is important.