Today I was asked some very good questions from a Filmmaker and below is my response, adopted for this Blog format:
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Here is a very good article from Mashable today, written by Brian Armstrong the CEO of www.Coinbase.com:
http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/28/whats-not-being-said-about-bitcoin/
"Bad actors are quickly weeded out of open networks because consumers have choice — the choice of many new entrants coming on the market to vie for their business."
Investors in Coinbase include:
We have used Second Market and Coinbase so far to purchase Bitcoin, and Coinbase is similar to PayPal. You can convert your money very easily to USD, and next week we will have the internal ability for Film Annex users to buy Amazon cards on our Marketplace.
Yes, I get paid BTC on my profile (http://www.filmannex.com/MikeSweeney). I then donate BTC to our Foundation (www.womensannexfoundation.org), or convert the money to USD on Coinbase and donate to a few Autism charities that my wife and I support (our son is Autistic).
The Film Annex drive to Bitcoin was driven by our Bloggers and Filmmakers in developing nations, and specifically there was a REAL safety issue for some of our friends who were paying people in cash in Afghanistan. Bitcoin is a real solution for women (and men) in developing countries: http://www.womensannexfoundation.org/#/digital-currency-for-digital-literacy/.
I am personally a real believer in BTC as an option for us here in the USA. My usual comparison is movies. When we were kids, I went to the movie theatre and 6-12 months later that movie was on TV. Now there are 15 different ways to see a movie, but my wife and I still like the movie theatre for special occasions. My thought is that Bitcoin will be the same in the USA as one of many options that we will use as a payment system:
In developing countries, our view is that Bitcoin and/or Digital Currencies will be very important.You can follow me here on my Blog, or @TargetThinking on Twitter.
P.S - This satirical article was just published by Coinbase which is a leading news service focused on Digital Currencies:
US Congressman Launches Satirical Bid to Ban the US Dollar
"The very features of dollar bills, such as anonymous transactions, have created ubiquitous uses from drug purchases, to hit men, to prostitutes, as dollar bills are attractive to criminals who are able to disguise their actions from law enforcement.”
Congressman Polis seems to have a similar view to my movie distribution analogy. Lots of options is always good for consumers.
