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News: Bitcoin Wednesday #20

Coinbase has announced a $75 million dollar “C” with investment from none other than the NYSE. Are dominant, centralized Bitcoin services just around the corner?
Voting with Ethereum Contracts: Jasper den Ouden’s Bitvote

Coinbase’s announcement isn’t necessarily bad news. Just a few weeks earlier, in January 2015, the Bitcoin price had plunged to $160, and some were predicting a sharp reduction in Bitcoin mining. That certainly did not happen. Despite its flaws the Bitcoin ecosystem clearly continues to expand. However, the sudden rise of dominant forces run counter to Satoshi’s original premise of decentralization, innovation and economic sustainability.

To answer this challenge many are already looking to the next wave of the digital currency revolution, the so-called Bitcoin 2.0 and non-financial services that we’re now starting to see.

The program for Bitcoin Wednesday #20 is just packed with presentations about these non-financial services, and belies the claimthat “Bitcoin is money.”

Bitvote contract diagram
Jasper will present his voting service based on the Ethereum blockchain. In his talk he refers to venture capitalist, hedge fund manager and libertarian, Peter Thiel who famously said that “Competition is for losers.”

Jasper will tell us why voting application like his are important for democracy on the Internet. He will also explain how his system works.For a quick preview of Jasper’s talk see this overview.

Early Stage Investor, Bitcoin Business Strategy Architect and Project Leader for Complex Internet SolutionsSee generalseven.com for more info.

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Geoff Goodell, Researcher at University College London
Dr. Geoff Goodel

Geoff Goodellis a researcher at the Department of Computer Science at University College London and an authority on the interface between computer science, finance and public policy. His talk for Bitcoin Wednesday will cover the range of available options on the subject of financial privacy, from total surveillance as represented by traditional financial institutions to the use of cryptocurrencies and related privacy enhancing technologies.

Lyn Ulbricht, mother of Ross Ulbricht
Lyn Ulbricht

Lyn Ulbricht is the mother of Ross Ulbricht, the man sentenced to life in prison at the age of 36 for his involvement in Silk Road. The dark web marketplace has made an indelible impact on the industry.

JP Thieriot, CEO of Uphold
J.P. Thieriot

J.P. Thieriot is CEO of Uphold, a digital money platform that serves 1.7 million customers in more than 184 country and has processed almost $6 billion in transactions.

Ruben Merre, CEO of ngrave
Cold Hardware Wallets

Ruben Merreis co-founder and CEO of Ngrave, an end-to-end hardware wallet solution that tackles the what-ifs of managing digital assets and cryptocurrencies.

Patrick Dai, CEO of Qtum
Patrick Dai

Patrick Dai is CEO of Qtum. He will talk about how Qtum built a smart contract system on top of Bitcoin’s infrastructure.

Thomas Borrel, CPO of Polymath
Thomas Borrel

Thomas Borrel leads the Product Strategy, Product Management and Product Marketing teams across Polymath’s product portfolio. Prior to joining Polymath, Thomas was Director of Product Management at Extreme Networks where he led Extreme’s Software and Cloud offerings.

Micha Roon, CTO of EnergyWeb
Micha Roon

Micha Roon is the CTO of the Energy Web Foundation and the Share&Charge Foundation. He is an authority on energy grid decarbonization, electrical vehicle charging and the tokenization of renewable energy.