At score Bitcoin Points som Digital Airline Miles

Dette er en meningsredaktion af Michael Rhee, the founder of Wavlake and a contributor at Bitcoin Magazine.

Alle elsker at holde score. Fra likes og omtaler på sociale medier til flyselskabs miles og Starbucks Rewards fortæller point os præcis, hvor vi står i den kommercielle verden. På sociale medieplatforme kan de betyde flere øjne og en følelse af validering. I en verden af ​​flyselskaber og kaffebarer kan de betyde flere gratis rejser og frappuccinos.

I dag bor hver af disse partiturer i en muret have. Som et gavekort til din yndlingsbutik kan disse point kun indløses ét sted og er låst inden for en afgrænset kontekst. Jeg kan ikke konvertere likes på mine tweets til gratis kaffe. Jeg kan heller ikke forvandle visningerne på mine YouTube-videoer til hotelophold med rabat.

Men det behøver ikke at være sådan.

Forestil dig et pointsystem på internettet, som alle brugte og frit kunne krydse en række forskellige platforme og applikationer, hvilket giver en samlet definition af værdi på tværs af dem alle.

If visions of the coming metaverse are true, then this kind of interoperability will be the fabric that weaves it all together. I believe that bitcoin has a key role to play in building a more unified commercial world — both on and off the internet — serving as a single, shared measure of value that can move across real and virtual borders with no friction.

Som grundlæggeren af ​​Wavlake forsøger jeg at bygge denne verden. Wavlake is a way for music listeners to directly support the artists they love, using bitcoin micropayments. It is part of a larger ecosystem of internet services that run on an open, interoperable standard for bitcoin payments. We’re witnessing the early stages of this dramatic change already. On Stabler Nyheder, users reward each other for posts and comments they like using small amounts of bitcoin. Commenters can then withdraw that bitcoin from the site and use it to tip musicians on Wavlake. Those same musicians can use their awarded bitcoin to stream podcasts on pay-by-the-minute players like Breez or Fountain. Podcasters can then take that same bitcoin and convert it into U.S. dollars using Cash App, or turn it into a gift card with Bitrefill.

To create this same unified experience with dollars would require careful coordination and cooperation between every closed payment network in the world. That means Venmo would have to work with Zelle and vice-versa, along with every other dollar-based payment app in existence. In contrast, Bitcoin’s open standards and permissionless nature uniquely enable any service to seamlessly integrate with every other Bitcoin service imaginable, without planning or mandate.

These unified commercial worlds are still small and experimental, but hold huge potential for our society and economy. As bitcoin adoption continues to grow, we will gradually close the loop and create a truly global, commercial system. Naysayers will finally be able to buy — or get a free — cup of coffee using bitcoin, throwing away the notion that it’s a useless and frivolous technology. This is the point at which Bitcoin fades into the background and becomes invisible, like the electricity powering your desk lamp.

Denne mulige fremtidige tilstand får mig til at undre mig: Måske behøver ikke alle at forstå østrigsk økonomi eller tredobbelt regnskab eller det byzantinske generalproblem eller hvordan centralbank fungerer eller WTF skete i 1971 — or any of the other, myriad frameworks for explaining this complex system we call the economy. Maybe most people don’t need any of this to “get” Bitcoin, in the same way I don’t need to know how to build every component of a phone in order to understand its value.

At some point in the future, bitcoin becomes the measure of our world. It will be just like airline miles, but for everything.

Dette er et gæstepost af Michael Rhee. Udtalte meninger er helt deres egne og afspejler ikke nødvendigvis dem fra BTC Inc. eller Bitcoin Magazine.