Chicago-Building a Beachhead to Move Forward In Bitcoin Business
Chicago IL- Bitcoin. The news cycle is swamped with stories of it. The cover of the most recent issue of Bloomberg/Businessweek pictured a dreamlike setting of a Unicorn and Bitcoins with the headline story “Bitcoin Dream’s-Why are investors so crazy for an alternative currency invented by a phantom?”
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The New York Times Dealbook, two days ago, published an OP ED piece written by Midwest son Marc Andreesen, who, while still a student at University of Illinois, invented the first widely used web browser Mosaic. In his piece “Why Bitcoin Matters” he posits:
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“A mysterious new technology emerges, seemingly out of nowhere, but actually the result of two decades of intense research and development by nearly anonymous researchers.…What technology am I talking about? Personal computers in 1975, the Internet in 1993, and – I believe – Bitcoin in 2014.”
So while Bitcoin is only five years old this month, we know that it is taking people’s imagination by storm. A recent article published in Coindesk, the voice of digital currency, featured Chicago in a piece titled “Chicago Poised to Host a Flourishing Bitcoin Economy.”
There are several initiatives, revolving around Bitcoin, in motion right here right now in Chicago in the domains of media, merchant services, trading, security, and education; to name a few.
On Feb. 1, The Sun-Times's site will direct readers to either donate to, in the form of Bitcoins, or tweet about the Taproot Foundation. This paywall experiment will be up for 24 hours to test the adoption and technology, which has been created by micropayment startup Bitwall. So…if you’re a Bitcoiner, go to Chicago’s oldest continuous news publication’s site, Chicago Sun Times, and use Bitcoin on Feb. 1st!
A meetup is coming to Chiberia at Big Bricks at 3832 N Lincoln ave. on Tuesday February 11th. To attend, keep up on the news, and see what the story is you can register for the meetup group “Chicago Bitcoin Meetup” at meetup.com and register for the Feb. 11 meetup.
There will be presentations from some of the intrepid business leaders in the Chicago Bitcoin ecosystem. Among others, Jonathan Solomon CEO of chicagomint.com will be talking about merchant services and merchant adoption. Justin Braun CEO of Scaled Dynamics will be talking about his new software offering and Bitcoin trading. Dr. Conrad Barski will be presenting a beginners guide to using Bitcoin and wallet security.
Come be part of the Bitcoin buzz in Chicago, the city that works, as we move from Bitcoin Backwater to a player in the crypto-currency game.
Gilbert “Gil” Valentine has been involved in Bitcoin since early 2011. He is an advocate and “true believer”. He aggregates, curates, and publishes content at his website GLCBitcoin.com. He consults to businesses and non-profits on the uses and implementation of Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies. He can be reached at glcbitcoin-at-gmail-dot-com.
