We’ve written a bit about the cryptocurrency in the past, but that was when the price of 1BTC was at around USD $250. Today the landscape has changed completely, gone from a market cap of around $5-6 billion, just 18 months ago, to now holding an impressive $120 billion capital. Because of this increase in price, many activities related to the currency that was not viable back then, has suddenly become viable.
For the developer who’s looking for a side project, this might be a great time to begin looking at combining WordPress and Bitcoin, or using the latest framework for JavaScript or Python to fully unlock the potential. Because while the price of the coin itself has risen, the applications are lacking behind. With an average block time of around ~15 minutes, and multiple confirmations required – there’s a potential for such applications to close this gap somehow – and with the growth of Bitcoin itself, other projects like Ethereum suddenly looks much more interesting as well.
One media, FX Daily Report, recently posted an article detailing the main issues with the technology. The author proposed 3 key obstacles for, in particular, controversy from buyers and sellers of the cryptocurrency. Let’s take a quick look at these three areas of pain that a skilled developer might be able to resolve, and cash in on.
- Fraud
Personally, I was confused at the amount of fraud going on in the world of BTC, people would never do the same thing with their physical money as they seemed to do with this electronic currency. Nor would they willingly store their Social Security Numbers on 3rd party databases, or count on these companies making money off of them to act in their customers best interest. With fraud still being one of the major reasons for many people to dismiss Bitcoin altogether, any developer who could provide a sense of safety – preferably open source – would stand to benefit in terms of attention and success.
- Wildly fluctuating
The prices of not just Bitcoin but all associated so-called Altcoins are all rapidly changing with moves of several hundred dollars in mere minutes not being unheard of in 2017. This means that for some people who just want to invest or build a nest-egg, the uncertainty is too much for them to invest in this potentially lucrative currency. Unlike normal stocks, the market is just too unstable for anyone not willing to take major risks with their investments. And even though there are great apps to keep track of just not Bitcoin prices but Forex as well, it would still be a chore and stress-inducing situation for an investor to keep up with the constant change in price of Bitcoin and it’s co-dependents. A skilled programmer could easily make a very simple hedging site, fully automated and open-source to pool together investments.
- Dilemma valutations
Concerning the dilemma of valuating a “correct” price for Bitcoin is possibly where we could see the use of AI or ML programs to help determine a price for the electronic coinage. Since most other currencies are tied together with tangible objects such as gold bouillons or backed by governments and for the most part are transparent in their ways of valuation, Bitcoin stands out. There is no precedence for this type of currency that truly encapsulates the digital age – and is applicable. While this might be too advanced for most out there, it could in theory be possible to evaluate a worth based on complex parameters – but it would require massive sets of data and a lot of creativity.
