Hard to take this article seriously when the first few paragraphs are talking about the hyperinflation of the currency of Zimbabwe, then trying to rectify that with bitcoin, which can fluctuate hundreds of USD in the span of a couple of hours.
It specifically mentions M-Pesa, which is already used by the majority of the continent, but trying to improve and go all-in on something established and accepted like that wouldn't be web 2.0 enough.
You could actually use bitcoin essentially as the payment "rails" for a transaction, so that people don't hold bitcoin and immediately then convert back into local currency, and therefore get around the price changes. Companies like coinbase already allow merchants to do this. Also, bitcoin prices will stabilize over time & as more people use the currency.
If you look at the charts volatility has actually gone up quite a bit during the past year, then levelled out a bit then spiked this past month or so but it's not really started dropping at all.
What method of tracking volatility are you looking at because all the ones I've tried on http://bitcoincharts.com/ at the all data length show an increase in volatility.
(Tried Chaikin Volatility, Donchian Channel, ATR, and Bollinger Band)
I don't think it actually goes down. Look at Jan 12 to Jan 13. Then look at Jan 13 to Jan 14. There is definitely a lot more volatility during the second period.
The others largely measure average price spread using slightly different means from each other.
That's a removable artificial limit, not a hard one.
By tweaking some settings, the network could easily be scaled to many times that.
If it ever became an issue (read: the network started to consistently max out the TPS limit), the ceiling would be lifted. If that wasn't sufficient, effort would be put into making the network more efficient. If that wasn't enough, more creative solutions would come into play (offline transaction systems, systems built to manage BTC outside of the blockchain [see CoinKite], etc).
I also found it a bit hard to swallow. The article mentions entire towns without access to electricity. Its hard to imagine a digital currency being preferable in those conditions.
I should have qualified above with something like e-currency.
> M-Pesa uses local currencies, which frequently lose their value in non-OECD countries.
The outrageous swings of bitcoin hour by hour have the same issue. I don't see how using the USD, like Zimbabwe did to prevent inflation coupled with M-Pesa wouldn't be a better solution if you are suggesting the country move to a new system.
>The outrageous swings of bitcoin hour by hour have the same issue.
Bitcoin loses, at worst, maybe 50% of its value over the course of a few weeks. The Zimbabwe dollar lost 99.99% of its value over the course of a few weeks.
Of course, on larger time scales, the volatility of Bitcoin has been in a distinctly upward direction. So yeah, I guess Bitcoin has kind of the opposite problem of the Zimbabwe Dollar (if you can call it a problem).
And then, of course, Bitcoin will probably stabilize over time. New currencies are not historically stable.
Yugoslavia did exist at the point in time when they had hyperinflation, which is what I was referencing. For the record, I certainly do not think Yugoslavia, Angola OR Peru or are continents. I just rephrased to make that more clear. Thanks for your input!
You list five countries, only two of which are in Africa, and yet you generalize your prescription to one continent. You do know there are some 52 other countries/economies in Africa?
The author didn't say those were continents, she said 'foo has occurred across continents', then gave examples of countries on different continents where it occurred.
The sprinkbok is native only to South Africa, Botswana, and Angola - would you rail that it should not be described as an African animal because it doesn't cover a majority of the continent?
It specifically mentions M-Pesa, which is already used by the majority of the continent, but trying to improve and go all-in on something established and accepted like that wouldn't be web 2.0 enough.