This blog post analyses the emergence of the Bitcoin, and assesses how the technology may affect Wu and Goldsmith’s idea of an internet with truly ‘overrun borders’. It uses the ideas presented in the text ‘Who controls the Internet? : Illusions of a borderless world’ by Wu and Goldsmith and analyses the effect Bitcoins may have on internet decentralization through analysis of the text’s ideas of the internet identification features (i.e. Country click localization). Particularly it will explores Goldsmith and Wu’s idea of regulation in accordance with the theory ‘Information wants to be free’ and how this regulation plays a significant factor in determining Bitcoin’s future.
What is Bitcoin and crypto-currency? A brief history.
Now most people have heard the current buzz about Bitcoin on the web recently, but what is it? Bitcoin is a decentralized, peer to peer based online currency. The currency allows for instantaneous transfer of currency, ideally allowing it to circumvent traditional ‘fiat’ bank/government regulated currency. It was created in 2009 by an anonymous developer or group by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, there is continued speculation towards the creator’s identity as he/she/they has still not been confirmed.
The value of the bitcoin is still subject to speculation and as such its value is volatile. In 2009, a single coin’s value being a fraction of a US dollar to late 2014 in which a single coin rose from $200 now to 600 US dollars in just one month! These values were gathered from BTCE, a notable Bitcoin/crypto currency exchange.
The emergence of Bitcoin was the first of its kind, it being the first true ‘crypto currency’ which is a currency based off cryptography and principles of encrypting and encoding data. As a result Bitcoin’s emergence has caused a large amount of amount of alternative crypto currencies to be developed, notable coins being Litecoin, Digicoin and even Dogecoin.
The above are just some of the crypto currencies now available. Source: http://news.insidebitcoins.com/future-bitcoin-and-crypto-currencies
Bitcoin, regulation and anonymity. Bitcoin’s counter measures to internet identification and how the currency enforces ‘overrun borders’.
Wu and Goldsmith’s idea of ‘overrun border’s describes early ideas of regulation and localisation of the internet. Similarly regulation is a large concern within the bitcoin community and can be related towards the book ‘Who controls the Internet? : Illusions of a borderless world’ by Wu and Goldsmith and the exploration of site localisation which can draw parallels to bitcoin’s current state, particularly it’s idea of website ‘country click localisation’ and website domain endings as some of the ways site’s categorise its readers by country. This can be brought back towards the idea that ‘information wants to be free’ but ‘information does not, in fact, want to be free’ seen in the text. The real question brought up through this idea is, will Bitcoin become increasing regulated with government involvement? Or Will Bitcoin inevitably break free from the traditional ‘chains’ of regulation through its decentralised nature, similarly as seen in Wu and goldsmith’s idea of internet ‘Overrun borders’.
This has become a major concern for bitcoin as large government bodies such as the US government have become involved with the Bitcoin. This is a concern mainly because with government involvement, the coin has become increasingly regulated, which has caused drops in market value. Current examples include the US government classifying the coin as ‘property’ http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/25/us-bitcoin-irs-idUSBREA2O1LR20140325 as well as US proposals providing methods of regulation such as ‘marking bitcoins’ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-tracking-proposal-divides-bitcoin-community/.
Could this be Bitcoin’s future? Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/BitCoin_Logo_With_US_Dollar.png
Bitcoins current issues with regulation can be seen as a mirror towards the internet’s initial struggles with localisation seen in Wu Goldsmith’s texts. According to the text, the internet’s percentage of users has shifted to native English speakers being in the minority ‘1/3’ in comparison to in the 90’s when English speaking users accounted for 80% of internet users. Ideally, Bitcoin will be adopted in an international scale and its decentralised nature will cause government bodies to shift in accordance to Bitcoin similarly to the way Microsoft changes its programs to suit differing countries as seen Wu and Goldsmith’s text. As a result, it has shown bitcoin’s future rests largely upon government involvement and whether this involvement will either hinder or ensure Bitcoins future.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ideally bitcoin’s decentralised nature will allow for the currency to transcend traditional ‘Fiat’ currency regulation and inflation. But its future remains uncertain as government involvement and regulation will ultimately determine the coins future which in a perfect world will evolve similarly to the way Wu and Goldsmith’s idea ‘site localisation’ caused companies such as Microsoft to adjust its software to differing markets.
The future remains uncertain Source:http://www.bloomberg.com/photo/bitcoin-is-property-not-currency-in-u-s-tax-system-irs-says-/-iXesUfwoQndE.html
Bitcoin Speculation 
