Featured – DGC

Why the First Round of Digital Gold Companies Failed to Achieve a Free Gold Standard

Ken Griffith on May 5, 2014

From 1996-2008 the Internet facilitated the rise of an international digital gold system, with multiple issuers and exchange agents in many countries. At its peak this system was seeing above 84 metric tonnes per year in gold transactions used for a very wide variety of purposes ranging from commerce to international remittances.
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DGC Founder Discusses His New Book, The Digital Currency Challenge

Julia Dixon on February 7, 2014

Carl Mullan is DGC’s founder, former editor and publisher of DGCMagazine with more than 50 past issues online. His new book, The Digital Currency Challenge – Shaping Online Payment Systems through US Financial Regulations, is now available on Amazon.

Bitcoin – A Jack of All Trades is the Master of None

Ken Griffith on February 6, 2014

As cybercommerce begins it will lead inevitably to cyber-money.— James Davidson, The Sovereign Individual, 1996

The hype surrounding Bitcoin has gone off the charts in the past year. For those of us who have been involved with digital currency systems since the 1990’s, it is interesting to see how people caught up in the hype think Bitcoin is wonderful but in many cases cannot clearly see the reason why. Other enthusiasts think that Bitcoin is the ultimate solution for all payments.

Bitcoin Money Supply and Money Creation

Radoslav Albrecht on September 17, 2013

Many articles mention, that the limited Bitcoin money supply is a major advantage of this digital currency. The reasoning usually goes like this. Since Bitcoins can only be created through mining and there is an upper limit of 21 million, Bitcoin is supposed to be inflation proof. This article for instance says, Bitcoin “theoretically eliminates inflation”. If this was true, Bitcoins would not lose purchasing power. The Bitcoins I own today would buy me the same amount of goods and services tomorrow. Or a larger amount in the case of deflation.

Bitcoin, Regulators and Online Markets – a look at the World of Bitcoin Exchange

Julia Dixon on July 29, 2013

Exchanges are the link between the old world of banking and the new world of crypto-currencies; they play a vital role in supporting the growing Bitcoin economy. If Bitcoin hopes to continue rapidly gaining new users it needs this bridge between the old and new systems to be up and functioning. While Bitcoin is in no way dependant on a link to the traditional banking system, its smooth transition into mainstream use certainly is.

Unfortunately these bridges which make up the exchange market are concentrated and often broken. This leads to concerns over reliability and security, which can cause market panic and extreme volatility. As Bitcoin enters the mainstream a wave of new businesses, services and software developers have recently dedicated their efforts to solving this problem. Their task will not be easy, and the while the exchange rate has seen some recent stability, there is a long way to go before obtaining bitcoins can be called user friendly and reliable.

True peer-to-peer currency exchange?

Julia Dixon on July 2, 2013

One of the biggest problems currently facing the Bitcoin economy is the exchange market. The market suffers from continued concentration and price volatility. In order to maintain their links to the traditional banking world, these businesses have the unenviable task of attempting to shove Bitcoin into the world of bank accounts and anti-money laundering policies. New exchanges are joining the Bitcoin economy but regulatory compliance is no small barrier to entry. The few existing online exchange services continue to be significant points of failure for the Bitcoin economy.

A network of small, peer-to-peer transactions would likely bypass many of these issues and would be a fitting solution for the brilliantly decentralized Bitcoin network. But is such a thing possible? The guys behind MetaLair, a UK based start-up, think so and are working hard to develop the software and find the investors to make it a reality.

Dinero MPS a new mobile payment system for the world’s under-banked

Julia Dixon on May 14, 2013

After the success of services such as M-Pesa, Kenya’s mobile-phone based money transfer service, it is clear that there is a large under banked population in the non-western world. A population that is quick to adopt low cost mobile based solutions.

A new mobile payment system, Dinero MPS, aims to offer a wide variety of mobile payment services starting with the unserved markets in Africa, South America and Asia. Founded by financial cryptographer Ian Grigg and entrepreneur Ken Griffith, Dinero’s Ricardian-Contract based system is set to launch later this year with the release of an Android phone app.

Dinero’s co-founder Ken Griffith shared with DGC insight on the businesses’ plans and motivations.

Bitcoin & The Banking System: Not Just Different, But Entirely Incompatible

Julia Dixon on March 22, 2013

Commercial banking is a money making endeavour; literally. Sure there’s a complex set of rules, but the short story is commercial banks create money. A button is pressed and congratulations, your loan has been approved and $50k of brand new digital Dollars are now sitting in your bank account.

As you might imagine, creating new money is a very handy little trick for banks. In fact, the commercial banking business model is dependent on the variable nature of national fiat currencies which makes this possible. But this trick only works on fiat currencies, replace the US Dollar with Bitcoins, and the banking system as we know it today ceases to exist.

Voucher-Safe, a Next Generation Digital Currency – Part III

Julia Dixon on March 13, 2013

Part I looks at the motivation behind Voucher-Safe, the evolution of digital currency and how Voucher-Safe transactions work.

Part II examines the Voucher-Safe economy, trust, security and software.

This final part looks at Voucher-Safe’s interaction with Bitcoin, Issuers and OnionPay.

The new Ripple, a decentralized exchange, a payment system, and a currency all its own

Julia Dixon on February 5, 2013

Out very soon, the new version of Ripple has has undergone a dramatic renovation.

Ripple was created by Ryan Fugger in 2006 as a trust network where people can grant each other credit, and anyone can ‘be their own bank’. The project has since been acquired by a team of developers including Mt. Gox creator Jed McCaleb. Ryan’s trust network is still there, but it is now one feature of a much expanded system.

The new features of the soon to be open source software include the possibility for a decentralized currency exchange, a p2p transaction network, “Gateways” for bringing other currencies into the system, and Ripples (XRP), a new digital currency.