Wednesday 14 February 2018

Bird Coin

Everyone is talking about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and was just thinking how block chain and cryptocurrencies might change birding and popular natural history. The Block Chain itself is a way of maintaining records/ledger in a community rather than entrusting it with a centralised bank/authority so has the potential of by-passing traditional authority structures and creating trust worthy pop up community structures. So potentially the block chain can have other uses rather than just banking. Could we see national lists being maintained on block chains, taxonomies on block chains- could it lead to popular movements or further collaborative scientific efforts. Cryptocurrencies provide a medium for micro-currencies- could we see the micro-monetisation of birding. There are already websites out there that pay a nano-fee (with cryptocurrency) to individuals who populate a user generated information platform- could we see bird information services go that way. 

For background on Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and Block Chains there is a good documentary on Netflix (Banking on Bitcoin) and also a recent Panaroma available on I-player - Who wants to be a Bitcoin Millionaire? There's also endless material on the internet but most of it is hyping material. 

Obviously all of this is probably 95% hype (a sad confirmation of the desperation of humanity) at the moment but after the bubble bursts Block Chain technology and Cryptocurrency is here to stay and will change everything including Natural History. Could we see Bird Coin appear?


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