The Four Types of Bitcoin Users
Transcription
The Four Types of Bitcoin Users
4/25/2016 The Four Types of Bitcoin Users CoinDesk TRENDING NEWS PRICE & DATA GUIDES BITCOIN PRICE INDEX (24H) $461 Win $5k in the Consensus 2016 Hackathon. Free to enter, apply now! EVENTS RESEARCH USD -0.24% CNY 0.04% ▼ $456 $459.20 $452 EUR PRESS RELEASES ▲ ¥2,974.32 €407.92 GBP £316.97 ὐ Search CONSENSUS 2016 FEATURES • OPINION The Four Types of Bitcoin Users Dr Paul Ennis | Published on April 24, 2016 at 16:50 BST 179 73 10 OPINION 6 0 Dr Paul Ennis is a research assistant at The Centre for Innovation, Technology & Organization at University College Dublin, specializing in bitcoin and blockchain studies. In this opinion piece, Dr Ennis discusses the wide range of bitcoin users and how their varying opinions on how the technology should develop is impacting network progress. Join 1,200+ industry leaders Fewer than 100 tickets left DON'T MISS A SINGLE STORY Subscribe to our free newsletter and follow us Email Address There are many assumptions about bitcoin users – that they are oddballs, fantasists, nerds, criminals, idealists and so on. But what are they actually like? Some of the assumptions listed above are technically true in some cases, but the reality is never as simple as that. Of course, one of the simplest, but nonetheless effective, means of ascertaining who uses bitcoin is to analyze Google Trends, as we find in Yelowitz and Wilson (2015). Although an imperfect method, since "search query need not imply active participation", Yelowitz and Wilson identify four types of broad bitcoin users: computer programming enthusiasts, speculative investors, libertarians and criminals (2015, pg 1030). SUBSCRIBE FEATURES Why US FinTech is a Joke How the Blockchain Can Unshackle the World This very much fits the "expected" profile of bitcoin users, and it also closely fits the results of a 2013 survey of 1,000 bitcoin users that found "the average user is a 32-year-old libertarian male". (Full disclosure: I am a 32-year-old male, but not a libertarian as such). From the perspective of these four types, the major reasons for bitcoin's appeal are: Why Blockchain Could Enable a True P2P Insurance Model For computer programmers, the rewards for mining http://www.coindesk.com/fourtypesbitcoinusers/ 1/5 4/25/2016 The Four Types of Bitcoin Users CoinDesk For speculators, the volatility For the libertarians, the perceived lack of regulation For criminals, the perceived anonymity. SWIFT Attracts Jeers and Praise for Distributed Ledger Embrace Libertarians are well-represented in bitcoin's non-academic literature, with themes concerning the potential of the technology to alter the prevalent social and economic orders (eg Kelly, 2015; Casey and Vigna, 2015). Books aimed at speculators, as one might expect, focus on bitcoin’s potential as an investment (Wilcox, 2014). Computer programmers enthusiasts are well-served by Swan (2015) and Antonopoulos (2015). The former is very blockchain-focused while the latter, true to form, is bitcoin-focused. Criminal elements Another prominent community, criminals came to be associated with bitcoin via the story of the Silk Road marketplace. Silk Road was an online marketplace operating on what is known variously as the Dark Web, the Dark Net or, erroneously, the Deep Web. The latter covers all the parts of the web that search engines do not index, but the "dark" aspect refers to sites that feature user anonymity and are, by default, difficult to access. Unsurprisingly, these markets are popular among this subset (Bartlett, 2014). INDUSTRY PRESS RELEASES Apr 22 | 08:09 Tech Bureau’s Mijin Proves a Success in Using Blockchain for Mission-Critical Banking System Apr 21 | 16:29 Buy Bitcoin at over 4,000 stores around Australia using Flexepin Apr 20 | 17:18 Emer to Launch 'Blockchain Engine' Development Platform Apr 11 | 14:42 Two-Way Bitcoin ATM Opens at the National Harbor Near Washington, D.C. VIEW MORE SUBMIT RELEASE MUST READ MOST POPULAR In terms of scale, for the criminal vector, the classic study by Christin (2013) of Silk Road put the revenue numbers in an eight-month period in 2011–2012 to roughly $1.2m, with $92,000 going to the operators of the marketplace. Now, the above description tends to relate to what one might term the generic bitcoin community, meaning they are the people who either mine, buy, trade or use bitcoin routinely (or are committed hoarders with an eye toward using it as a store of value). Even if bitcoin is arguably not a currency, as some claim, it is treated as such by this community. Different definitions When it comes to trying to understand what bitcoin is, we often find that arguments center upon its status as a currency as understood in regulatory, financial or legal terms. Currency is one way to grasp bitcoin, albeit one related to questions about how the digital currency might come to fit into mainstream society. Bitcoin users often seem conflicted on the issue. On the one hand, they want bitcoin to be different than what has come before, but they also, for various reasons, want to see more people using it. This conflict helps explain why the community nearly split over the scaling debate, but from a different angle. Miners, for instance, were drawn to BIP 100 (introduced by developer Jeff Garzik) for a few technical reasons, but one social one is that it allows the miners to become active voters on the future of the Bitcoin Core reference client. Some speculators support Bitcoin Classic because it means faster transactions that speak to this entrepreneurial spirit that wants bitcoin adoption to grow significantly faster. Libertarians are caught somewhere in the middle. They don’t want the miners to become too centralized, but also seem tuned into the fact that the Bitcoin Core development community could be seen as a centralized structure, too. They also might want wider adoption for ideological reasons, but also want to avoid a major screw-up in the form of a disastrous hard fork that could imperil the network's future. Criminals will carry on as they always have, but are largely outside of the mainstream conversation at present. Concluding remarks European Parliament Member: Everyone Should 'Get Some Bitcoins' Bitcoin Price Breaks $450 as Global Markets Turn Positive Ethcore Raises $750,000 to Help Ethereum Go Enterprise Morgan Stanley Report Issues Predictions for Blockchain in 2025 Got a news tip or guest feature? What is Bitcoin? It's a decentralized digital currency How Can I Buy Bitcoins? From an exchange or an individual Bitcoin users are, then, precisely what one would expect on paper: technically literate, politically plugged-in and economically motivated. However, one must remember that just become someone is a libertarian, this does not translate http://www.coindesk.com/fourtypesbitcoinusers/ 2/5 4/25/2016 The Four Types of Bitcoin Users CoinDesk However, one must remember that just become someone is a libertarian, this does not translate into automatic sympathy to dark net criminals. Nor is there a clean path for the libertarian when it comes to decentralization: for the traditional technologically-focused decentralist this means disavowing large block-increases just to facilitate faster transactions. To the more economically-minded, decentralization means no block limit at all, and thus wider adoption of bitcoin for commercial uses. What the scaling debate has revealed is that there is no homogenous community of Bitcoin "types" per se, but rather various factions united under the umbrella term of decentralization. Diverse business crowd via Shutterstock Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, CoinDesk. Crime Scaling 179 73 10 PREVIOUS ARTICLE 6 0 NEXT ARTICLE How the Blockchain Can Unshackle the World Why US FinTech is a Joke RELATED STORIES NEWS Apr 25, 2016 at 13:40 | Stan Higgins ECB Paper: Distributed Ledgers Likely to Bring 'Gradual' Change The European Central Bank has published a working paper on blockchain tech, examining its potential role in securities markets. NEWS Apr 20, 2016 at 20:31 | Stan Higgins Unlicensed Bitcoin Exchange Operators Plead Guilty in Louisiana A Louisiana man and his son have plead guilty to running an unlicensed bitcoin exchange, the US Department of Justice said today. NEWS Apr 13, 2016 at 21:00 | Stan Higgins San Francisco Fed Chief: Digital Currencies Could Make Crime 'Easier' The president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco gave a speech on financial technology earlier this week. NEWS Mar 31, 2016 at 15:30 | Stan Higgins Interpol War Game Models Chase for Bitcoin Blackmailers Interpol conducted a war game scenario last week that centered on discovering the identity of a blackmailer demanding a bitcoin ransom. Sponsored If You're Queen Of England, You Get 2 Birthdays And A Parade http://www.coindesk.com/fourtypesbitcoinusers/ 3/5 4/25/2016 The Four Types of Bitcoin Users CoinDesk If You're Queen Of England, You Get 2 Birthdays And A Parade 6 Comments Recommend 1 CoinDesk ⤤ Share 1 Login Sort by Best Join the discussion… http://www.coindesk.com/fourtypesbitcoinusers/ 4/5 4/25/2016 The Four Types of Bitcoin Users CoinDesk Sun Drez • 19 hours ago Could not expect nothing less... this is from an educated person with a degree... lmfao.... wow.... complete trash.... truth is I am an investor... and see this a truly a secure investment... these darn handicaps just don't understand that Bitcoin is simply a way to secure money... of course silver spoon fed fools will never grasp this... as earning money is not part of their skill set... bitcoin is an investment vehicle... 2 △ ▽ • Reply • Share › Burnt Eloi • 16 hours ago 4 for 4 baby lol utter trash 1 △ ▽ • Reply • Share › Jonathan Silverblood • 19 hours ago I read up until they listed the so called "motivations" for each group. At that point, it was obvious that this article was just going to be a waste of time. 1 △ ▽ • Reply • Share › Sun Drez > Jonathan Silverblood • 17 hours ago I laughed at ur comment thank you. .. it was a waste of time to read this article... △ ▽ • Reply • Share › Bitcoin Error Log • 2 hours ago Why are you rehashing articles and using data that is years old, and then inferring motivations of people doing searches? You highlight each user type with the worst wording of motivations, why not this: For computer programmers, developing the world's most prominent blockchain For speculators, the store of value For the libertarians, the added privacy and freedom For the underserved and oppressed, the psuedoanonymity. △ ▽ • Reply • Share › @RMessitt • 3 hours ago "For computer programmers, the rewards for mining". Completely disagree with this. I work in software dev and the majority of programmers interested in Bitcoin / Blockchain are not miners since ASICs emerged you simply can't be an effective hobbyist miner any more so that's just nonsense. All the devs I knew that were mining on their own rigs gave it up YEARS ago. This was drab, uninformed and offered no new insight whatsoever. If anything it felt *really* dated. Strikes me as another article from an author who doesn't quite yet understand how Bitcoin actually works and is a bit late to the party but wanted to publish 'something' about Bitcoin. Usually think Coindesk are pretty spot on with their coverage but I'm afraid this was a swing and a miss. △ ▽ ✉ Subscribe • Reply • Share › d Add Disqus to your site Add Disqus Add ὑ Privacy Sponsored Free eBook On How To Manage iOS In The Enterprise (JAMF) Forget The iPhone 7. Next Apple Sensation Leaked (The Motley Fool) This Algorithm Can Calculate Your Shirt Size in Seconds (Proper Cloth) Do You BingeWatch Documentaries? 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