Jump to content
  • entries
    14
  • comments
    83
  • views
    5,611

The Barbershop: Social Network|Topic: Cryptocurrency - Bitcoin


Mel Hopkins

3,055 views

As long as black women need to get their hair "did", and black men need to get lined up, we will always come together in the "Shop" or around kitchen tables to share the latest news. 

No matter how many social networks like Myspace, Facebook and Twitter spring up they will never replace Low tech media such as The Barbershop,The Beauty Salon & Kitchentalk.   

 

On this video, Software and Mobile App developer Anari Sengbe, illustrates this point when after his days of disrupting Silicon Valley, he returns to the village to talk about cryptocurrency.

I've been following this tech guru since he came up with the GoVote app that would allow volunteers to wait in line for others who couldn’t afford the long wait time to vote

I was updating ads on my blog and I came across a story I "pressed" on him last year. 

 

As you can tell, from the name of this blog, I look for interesting  "characters" and so I followed up with him on LinkedIn to find out the latest. 

Earlier this year, Anari Sengbe launched OWO (Yoruba-English translation: Money).  OWO.world is a digital platform that has a suite of applications from social to gaming with a twist that allows users and developers to earn/exchange cryptocurrency.   

I'm working my way up the learning curve to understand this digital currency, but I like the questions these brothers ask because when you teach you learn.  And Sengbe is able to answer these bitcoin questions in a way that s easy to understand.   

By the way, Gaming is included in the Trillion-dollar Media & Entertainment industry but I don't think the government did an assessment that includes bitcoin mining. 

 


My head is spinning trying to make sense of all this  but you only get old when you stop learning. 

10 Comments


Recommended Comments

Thanks, sister Hopkins very interesting, I too am still foggy on cryptocurrencies. I saw that bitcoin is being promoted, really-hard, by conservative and financial network sites. Like anything humans put value on, there's somebody standing by to exploit it. The catholic church was the corruption of gold and the dollar. I need to watch the video though.

Link to comment

Stephanie Baskek wrote, 05/04/2018: "When there’s a gold rush on, the thing to do is not to dig. Instead, sell shovels to all the suckers who think they’ll get rich digging for gold. This is one of the lessons that investigative reporter Corey Pein learned when he moved to San Francisco at the height of the Silicon Valley start-up boom. In his analogy, the gold rush is the tech boom, and the suckers are all the start-up wannabes who flock to the Bay Area for a slice of the venture-capital pie. And all of us, the consumers, who fell for the excitement of the gig economy and the lure of a free social network that promised to never sell our data? We’re suckers, too."

 

Cryptocurrencies are the modern-day 'Gold Rush,' this could be gold mine for Blacks with a few dollars to invest, but leveraging the benefits is going to take some 'creative' financial/economic smarts. CAREFUL!

  • Like 1
Link to comment
On 5/10/2018 at 5:39 AM, Kalexander2 said:

"When there’s a gold rush on, the thing to do is not to dig. Instead, sell shovels to all the suckers who think they’ll get rich digging for gold.

 

Yes, this is a very old aphorism.  I've read one about fishing poles to fisherwomen/men.

 

But do we still find value in tools today? Also, do you think wealthy people are “careful”?

 

Let's unpack this sage advice using the top 25 wealthiest people in the world.  

(1) Jeff Bezos–sells tools, provides a virtual and real location for tools and storage for information.

(2) Bill Gates – makes and sells tools

(3) Warren Buffet buys companies that sell tools, transportation and shelter & tools protection

(4) Bernard Arnault sells luxury tools and goods

(5) Mark Zuckerberg’s product is people and sells their attention


Mark Zuckerberg provides the tools, but his company, Facebook’s product is people and he sells their attention. Allegedly, he doesn't even sell personal information, he sells access to those who’d like to get in front of specific eyes.   

In this case, is attention the shovel/fishing pole?  I'm not sure. 

 

Also, MZ allows those who want access to determine the value of those eyes.  

 

Although this tends to be my blind spot, most of these people on the list "sell shovels/fishing poles", some sell "fish” but there are a few gold-miners /fisherwomen/men here too. 

 

But all those businesses have one thing in common – they earn and require currency. 

 

Now bitcoin is cryptocurrency, and  its value is in the exchange.  I don’t know if the goal is to get rich quick from using bitcoin but rather allowing those who use it, determine its value. 

It’s practically an egalitarian currency that’s in use nearly worldwide.    

 

So, I guess the key to predict who will profit from the proverbial gold rush is the one provides the platform for trading. 

 

Currently, heavily regulated financial institutions are the ones who profit.   But now we have the Winklevoss Twins who were awarded a patent for ETP (exchange-traded products (ETPs) using cryptocurrencies) –(See  Vanguard ETF)


Then on a smaller scale we have Anari Sengbe's website OWO where gaming and purchasing products at a discount using cryptocurrency gives the platform its value.   
 

We still have bitcoin miners (With Bitcoin, miners use special software to solve math problems and are issued a certain number of bitcoins in exchange AND cryptocurrency platforms just might be the new “shovels or fishing poles" in this digital economy.   

Edit: to change but to AND.  According to Anari Sengbe in this talk,  the internet of things (IoT) allows the devices to mine bitcoins for others and earn a fee for the transaction.  In short your refrigerator, thermostat or any device in your home can become a virtual "Check Cashing Place" except its mining bitcoins or any other cryptocurrencies. 

I don't think the Black community can afford to be ignorant of  cryptocurrencies. We're already 10 years behind. 

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

@Mel Hopkins: As with any venture, there's always the best and better way to benefit; offering cryptocurrency platforms may very well be the best way for Black investors to get involved. That involves manipulation, bold approaches, and deceit seem to always work for the short-run. Remember, banking was a moral success story until the usury was implemented and paper replaced gold, values we placed objects.

 

The question is how much more our human morality are we willing to give-up, in the name of modern success, post slaverySome things we can make happen, but for Black folk it's mostly about things that's happened us, and even that doesn't account for the way our fractured lives have somehow been held together.

 

Now, I'm about to go off script for a moment here with a totally controversial POV. Going into financial product ventures market today call for completely joining the fray; diving in head first rather than a quick dip. To start justifying, looking at this as an equalitarian method for helping our people is the first step towards something sinister, in my opinion.

 

No, we should not just sit around waiting for the change we need to fall from the sky, either. Nor do I know of any alternative means Black folk can embark on. No one else knows either, which is the point I'm attempting to make here. Shovels break as with all tools some are better than others. Some people get their tools on credit, others with symbolic valuables like cash. I would not feel comforable, to outright try to sell a glass of ice-water to someone living in Alaska. Nor am I of the opinion we should do to each other what Whites do to us, just because some else will get them if I don't.

 

With some reservations, I'm like Sam Cooke's African American song: "A Change is Gonna Come." 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
19 hours ago, Kalexander2 said:

As with any venture, there's always the best and better way to benefit; offering cryptocurrency platforms may very well be the best way for Black investors to get involved. That involves manipulation, bold approaches, and deceit seem to always work for the short-run. Remember, banking was a moral success story until the usury was implemented and paper replaced gold, values we placed objects.



@Kalexander2 


According to Anari Sengbe in this talk,  the internet of things (IoT) allows the devices to mine bitcoins for others and earn a fee for the transaction. 

In short, your refrigerator, thermostat or any device in your home can become a virtual "Check Cashing Place" except its mining bitcoins or any other cryptocurrencies. 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Interesting subject.

 

The "shovel" metaphor holds true and illustrates the problem with unbridled capitalism -- you know when the only incentive is to make money -- the way it is practiced in the United States.

 

So I can become rich by doing anything from hosting pedophila websites to making the plastic crack vials. At the corporate level, selling toxic securities or cigarettes.  It is all the same thing. The human consequences are not important at all...

 

 

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
49 minutes ago, Troy said:

The human consequences are not important at all...

 

@Troy and for some corporations this is absolutely their modus operandi!  

 

This is exactly why I look for businesses that have sustainable development at its core.  

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment

 

Cryptocurrency is now a new object interest for me, thank you @Mel Hopkins. 

I've been researching, investigating digital assets that use cryptocurrencies using an encryption technique, for security; how it is used to buy and sell goods and services. People are able to use cryptocurrency under near-anonymity, peer-to-peer purchasing eliminating of financial intermediaries, and some other “smart,” programmable capabilities that Bitcoin currently does not possess.

 

There two major categories utilized for the purchase of goods and services and those that allow for the creation of a sort of “smart contracts;” agreements that enforce themselves per a code rather than the courts. With over 1,000 cryptocurrencies in existence as of January 2018 (called “altcoins”); over 600 have market capitalizations of over $100,000. 

I've noticed at least five-countries using this form of digital financial assets as well as identified several major companies all of which are U.S. affiliated, and thirteen major retail outlets.

 

Brother Troy is on to something very interesting, in his post response. Like the NRA whom I believe is unofficially trading in cryptocurrency. Though FEC has officially prohibited trading in this form of financial asset, some traders are seemingly getting away with it.

 

I'm still sometime away from getting all the information to satisfy my curiosity; though the ease of getting involved and the direction global economics is heading, I'm quite skeptical. Cryptocurrency appear to be soaked in blood!

  • Like 1
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Add a comment...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...