So I’ve been chatting with @naltun who is interested in crypto-currencies… and we’re talking about how we could add currency-driven stuff to the SSi environment… combined with some of the delivery/UX/gamification stuff that @wondersheep is thinking about, and eventually reaching out into the real world… a bit like the Google ‘Ingress’ game…
So you could earn currency from all the actions which lead you towards improving your Welsh, eventually including meeting up to practise with other people, getting groups together, ordering stuff in Welsh in particular locations… and even get a network of businesses willing to accept a % in SSi-cash, try to build an ecosystem there…
If all this is ‘eh?’ for you, don’t worry…
But if there are any crypto-currency folk out there - bitcoin-interested coders, that sort of stuff - it would be lovely to know, and to get you involved in the conversation…
And @Deborah-SSi - it would be really cool to headline with this next week…
I grasp the idea but many might not so I agree with you here @amandalaing. And I also presume for the time being coders of such things are sought, rather than those interested in “earning” something in the first place. “Earning” comes second I believe, after coders figure things out how to make these thingys possible here.
Don’t worry @amandalaing. It will only make sense to those who already know what Aran’s talking about, and they are the people he wants to get hold of. The rest of us - me included - can just smile politely and get back to what we were doing
Just changed my mind about cryptoarian, as it might refer to something else in English… relating to blonde hair and things. Don’t want the currency to get blocked in its infancy.
Dean ydw i. Dwi’n byw yn Edmonton (Canada), a dwi’n gweithio yn … Information technology (Google Translate gives “Technoleg Gwybodaeth” as the Welsh term, but I’m unsure how accurate that is.
Anyway, cryptocurrency is a very interesting idea, but I’m not sure it’s quite ready for prime time yet. There are a number of problems I see with it:
You need to store your currency in a digital “wallet”. Sadly, lots of these “wallets” have been found to have serious security flaws in them, an many people have had their bitcoin stashes stolen.
Bitcoins aren’t hard currency, and therefore aren’t as flexible as actual, government-based cash. There are “bitcoin exchanges” available on the Net, where people can buy/sell their bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies. I am extremely distrustful of them. Please read about the “Mt. Gox” debacle here if you are interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Gox
Remember (this applies to Bitcoin, but may also apply to other cryptocurrencies): There are only a FINITE number of bitcoins that will ever be available. This is a fundamental part of the design, and we have yet to reach that number (I believe Bitcoin is still quite a way away from reaching its limit). Why does this matter? It all boils down to economics and the concept of money supply. It’s actually very interesting how it works, but the fact is that any currency with a finite amount of supply is vulnerable to hoarding. Essentially, people stop spending the currency which effectively make it useless. If you are interested in another read, I’ll point you to an article on the “Capitol Hill Babysitting Club”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Hill_Babysitting_Co-op
In short, it’s REALLY interesting, and it’s got an air of “stick it to the Man” about it, but I don’t think the current iteration is quite ready to go yet.
As I understand it, there are two main things at play here:
the creation and use of an alternative currency, independent of traditional controls such as governments and banks, and bitcoin is one of many examples, and
a means of validating that currency and its transactions through cryptographic technology, called blockchain
As you implied, the technology is not the hard bit, the hard bit is the creation of value in the currency, presumably through services such as language chat session, and then have this value swapped for other value, presumably similar services. A value exchange model is what would be required first, I think.
@johndray@deanpowell - would you like to join the discussion on Slack? Louis, Rob, you’d be very welcome too…
I’ve got to rush in a moment… but broadly, we’re thinking in terms of starting by setting up an internal currency as part of a move towards gamification, but keen to keep an eye on the various models of user interface for blockchain that are coming down the pipes… because if in the long run we can spread the currency out into some parts of the real world, then it would make ‘in real life’ elements of the gamification more possible/enticing…
This seems like a sane approach to creating a cryptocurrency. Love the fact that the code is opensource on GitHub, the community seems to be forming, so the challenge is to get miners and some sort of exchange(s). Although I suppose the exchange is only important if you want to currency to have value in terms of other currencies.
Great thing about digital currencies is that the block chain takes care of fraud/counterfeits.
Not necessarily. Many gift tokens that you can buy things with in shops explicitly have no exchange value. I suppose you could buy a loaf with a token and then sell the loaf for Sterling, but the gift token, even if it said £10, would still not have a cash value.
