There has been a lot of talk lately around Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. A noteable article putting down the currency recently appeared on ThinkProgress. The author described this new form of tender as created by and used by 32 year old white Libertarian men. I do not doubt the demographics but I do not feel it should be attached simply because of who uses it.
What the article missed was of high importance. First, because it's a digital encryption transferred from person to person (or business to business) without the use of banks the US government would not be able to stop Americans from supporting causes they believe in such as Wikileaks. The US Government was able (at it's height) to push banks and credit card processors to cut off the supply of funding to an organization that exposed the most important wrong doing by a government in over a decade.
Small businesses can accept these cryptocurrencies and turn a portion or all into cash. Merchants can accept them for a 0% to 1% transaction fee (without paying an additional flat rate per transfer), this helps small ticket businesses typically in the food industry. As a Progressive I feel it's important to find ways to push back against big banks who have a stranglehold on our economy and our lives and cryptocurrencies are a way to do that.
We have heard a lot of talk recently about low income workers being paid on re loadable debit cards which charge significant fees. Without access to traditional banks being able to have your pay transferred to you digitally without fees may be a better option than losing out on part of your hard earned income.
As more merchants begin to accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin and they become more mainstread the price fluctuations should reduce and the currency will become more stable against the US Dollar.
I recently visited a bitcoin ATM and put $10 in and got 15.2 mBTC. A few days later I bought 100,000 Dogecoin (which trades for less than a penny against the Dollar). So far the bitcoin value is down slightly while the Dogecoin value is up slightly.
What I like best about Dogecoin is that because the value is so low people on message boards have been using it to tip people who post good content. If you like what you've read feel free to tip me at:
Bitcoin: 1H14c6gVbn8je8FsBAgrDe7XkGUk5uqsyo
or
Dogecoin: DQ1N19kozwM3E11Gmkar1FFM4LSVeq5JMt
If you want to try it out to see how it works then download a Dogecoin app on your phone and I'll send you a Dogecoin.
Thanks and enjoy