Three Years on One Blockchain or Another

_{Image by Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto on Pixabay}

Three years on one blockchain or another 😁.

It's been fun, I've learned lots and met some interesting people. In September I start a University digital currencies module and at the end, if I'm any good, I get a digital certificate on the Bitcoin blockchain. I'm not sure how that is going to work, but we'll see when we get there.

The course looks interesting - 12 weeks covering:
01: A brief history of money
02: The Byzantine General's Problem
03: Basics of cryptocurrancy
04: Bitcoin in practice: part 1 - Bitcoin Core, wallets
05: Bitcoin in practice: part 2 - transactions, mining
06: Alternative uses of the blockchain
07: Alternatives to Bitcoin
08: Cryptocurrency and Central Banking
09: Cryptocurrency and financial institutions
10: Regulatory and tax treatment
11: Cryptocurrency and innovation
12: Cryptocurrency and the developing world

We've been consulted about another EU-supported project, DLT4ALL, which aims to make learning about blockchain and distributed ledger technologies easy:

While DLT and Blockchain can have significant economic and social impact, many European entrepreneurs, angel investors and incubator managers are still not aware of the potential benefits the adoption of these technologies can offer in terms of growth and innovation. (Source)

There was a lot of focus on Ethereum, which was to be expected, I suppose. I suggested that they might like to have a wider brief and help participants think about the criteria for selecting any given blockchain and asked whether they had they come across Hive? Conveniently, @blocktrades published this timely post about Hive's future as a 2nd layer blockchain network, so I was able to link to that.

I dropped in on the Global Digital Finance conference on 8th July (videos here). The main thing that stuck with me was Tom Mutton, Director of FinTech at the Bank of England making the point that a lot of people in the UK are dependent on cash and he didn't see it disappearing anytime soon. I'd go further than that and say there's a whole cash economy that operates outside the state machinery in addition to those people who have very few other choices.

Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) from GDF on Vimeo.

Elsewhere, I've read that about 3% of the UK population own crypto and another 7% have said they would consider buying it in the future. It feels a little weird to be so far ahead of the curve but it does help to illustrate how very early stage this technology is in some parts of the world - even the UK government's approach is that adoption is too low to warrant any regulation.

Personally, I like the way the narrative for Hive is changing, with a greater emphasis on reward for audience participation (consuming) and building a share in the ownership of the platform; and I love the opportunities afforded by communities and 2nd layer decentralised applications.

Time of Change

Lots has been going on in the world, most notably the global COVID-19 pandemic and its attendant miseries. In the blockchain world, we went for a hard fork and a band set off on our Hive journey.

Meanwhile, I've had my own year of change. I wrote about my health goals at the beginning of the year, after a trying 2019. Things are much better now: on Wednesday, I was told I am "very healthy". I asked them to say it twice. I was offered some lifestyle help to continue to build immunity and resilience and I started that yesterday.

We've had two bereavements, neither pandemic related: one a tragic early death in a road traffic accident; the other the end of a good life, long and well-lived, with a peaceful, pain-free slipping away in sleep death, loved son close by. We are still coming to terms with both, and still, there seems to be an inordinate amount of paperwork to get through.

I looked back to last year's anniversary post which I used for a little bit of my story and, of course, just a month ago, I became an Orca. My main interests on Hive now are about contributing to promising new projects. I continue to support @needleworkmonday and @spinvest, and delegate to various initiatives that support new and smaller accounts, as well as @steemflagrewards.

I've been doing a lot of background research for a proposal for investment in The Ink Well as a potential alternative income source for readers and writers. I've already published a post about the creative industries and publishing, I've another post in preparation about the writer economy, and a third one about suggestions for tools and facilities within communities to help develop them. I was really heartened by this post about Harnessing the Power of Hive by @ericvancewalton. I shall be quoting from it a lot 😁.

It is really good to see UK meetups starting to happen: @nathanmars is BUIDL-ing the London community - I hope to get there soon; and @c0ff33a is organising one later in the year in Halifax - which I feel quite excited about. Anyone can organise a meetup - just find a venue (pub, coffee shop, picnic area) and let people know about it.

So, times are changing - life on Hive is ever-reiterating. Here's to the next year.