{"id":2514,"date":"2017-11-21T23:01:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T23:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/?p=2514"},"modified":"2018-01-05T08:26:50","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T08:26:50","slug":"news-zimbabwe-why-invest-in-bitcoin-post-apocalyptic-bitcoin-how-to-get-security-researchers-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/11\/21\/news-zimbabwe-why-invest-in-bitcoin-post-apocalyptic-bitcoin-how-to-get-security-researchers-attention\/","title":{"rendered":"News: Zimbabwe, why invest in Bitcoin, post-apocalyptic Bitcoin, how to get security researchers&#8217; attention"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>&#8220;This new currency was supposed to be fully convertible into U.S. dollars, a promise that has proven to be illusory. It has since slipped to a large discount to the dollar. So when Zimbabweans buy bitcoin for $13800 \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/jpkoning.blogspot.ca\/2017\/11\/zimbabwe-and-hyperbitcoinization.html\">they aren&#8217;t paying with U.S. dollars<\/a>, they are paying with this new unit &#8230; In Zimbabwe, the market exchange rate is set unofficially, on street corners and such. Without an on-the-ground data gathering network to canvas street corners, an outside observer can get a decent proxy for the exchange rate by gathering bitcoin prices on the internet.&#8221;\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>By the way, the Chairman of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe points out that Bitcoin is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsday.co.zw\/2017\/11\/rbz-researches-bitcoins\/\">&#8220;not actually legal.&#8221;<\/a>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;Three-quarters of bitcoin holders <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/the-reasons-americans-give-for-buying-bitcoin-show-they-have-no-idea-what-theyre-doing-2017-11-17\">could not identify a sound financial reason<\/a> for investing, two-thirds said they hadn\u2019t locked in a nickel of profits even as the price of the token rocketed skyward.&#8221; (So I&#8217;ve made more actual money in a bank account from Bitcoin than that two-thirds, without ever touching one.)\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>As I note in <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/table-of-contents\/\">chapter 3<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/book\/\">the book<\/a>, continued availability of high powered computing machinery, mining chip foundries, fast Internet and electricity will be <i>absolutely assured<\/i> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2017-11-20\/can-bitcoin-survive-an-apocalypse\">grim meathook Mad Max petrolpunk future<\/a>. And we can use colloidal Litecoin for antibiotics.\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It always works out well when a Bitcoin spam run uses <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/cybercrime\/2017\/11\/text-messages-and-bitcoin-codes-follow-the-money-trail\/\">a security researcher&#8217;s domain<\/a> as the return address.\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Oh my goodness, I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/davidgerard\">paying patrons!<\/a> (Paying on December 1, anyway.) I now feel a compulsion to <i>deliver<\/i>. Tell your friends and colleagues about this fabulously insightful news blog and get them to sign up too.\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>LBRY.io <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LBRYio\/status\/932625777765634049\">tweeted<\/a> a photo of some old white guy in a suit and tie. Looks respectable &mdash; you should probably trust <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/book\/\">whatever he says<\/a> about money. And <a href=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/2017\/11\/18\/unbubbled-jamie-king-and-sarah-henry-with-david-gerard-and-emin-gun-sirer\/\">watch the video<\/a>.\n<\/ul>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Do you think the &quot;be your own bank&quot; concept that&#39;s so tied to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/crypto?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#crypto<\/a> works? <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/davidgerard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@davidgerard<\/a> makes his case on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jamie_jk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@jamie_jk<\/a>&#39;s new series Unbubbled &#8211; only on LBRY! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XUknZ8hm0d\">https:\/\/t.co\/XUknZ8hm0d<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XKE1y2RlRx\">pic.twitter.com\/XKE1y2RlRx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; LBRY \ud83d\udcda \u2696\ufe0f \ud83d\udce3 (@LBRYcom) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LBRYcom\/status\/932625777765634049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 20, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\n<\/center><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<br><br><div align=\"center\"><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\"><img src=\"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/become_a_patron_button.svg\" alt=\"Become a Patron!\" title=\"Become a Patron!\" width=217 height=51><\/a><br><p style=\"align:center;\" class=\"patreon-badge\"><i>Your subscriptions keep this site going. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=8420236\">Sign up today!<\/a><\/i><\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not all Tether hacks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,250,6,257,255],"class_list":["post-2514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-attack-of-the-50-foot-blockchain","tag-lbry","tag-links","tag-malwarebytes","tag-zimbabwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2514"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3860,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2514\/revisions\/3860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidgerard.co.uk\/blockchain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}