The other night my good friend & fellow cryptoenthusiast Ryan Shea suggested we head to a new Bitcoin meetup neither of us had been to before. I agreed to meet him there, and though the conversation was stimulating, much of the experience was pretty demeaning.

The Black Swan Chronicles:

 An Adventure in Cryptoland by Tracey Leonard

 Let me start off by saying that I am the last person you would expect to find in the world of Bitcoin.  I only started texting a little over a year and a half ago.  I just purchased my first real smart phone.  I’m going to sign up for a plan tomorrow.  I have an online store, but it took me a good 8 months to actually figure out what I was doing with any sort of fluency.  I joined Twitter just a couple of weeks ago on a whim.  I somehow managed to get myself suspended before the first tweet.  I still have no idea why, but I was graciously allowed to come back with no explanation.

There are some lessons in life you can only learn by taking a risk.  Like love.  Or marriage.  Or bitcoin. Or what your Valentine’s Day weekend will look like when you and your wife decide to let bitcoin be your guide. Katie and I are true believers in bitcoin, from the principles of freedom, to the commitment to support the marketplace.  And so when we talked about our 2014 Valentine’s Day weekend, we decided to take a risk.  We would seek out only bitcoin places to do business, and try to have a romantic weekend spending as much of the currency as we possibly could.

Bitcoin: Choosing the Path Forward. Wall Street or Main Street? by Tracey Leonard

  I know I’m not the only one who is sick and tired of hearing that Bitcoin is dead, damaged, destroyed, ad nauseum.  It isn’t.  And everyone within the community already knows that.  The myth has been put to bed.  The thing I was most impressed by during the last week was the ability of an entire group of people to jump in, analyze, dialogue, offer support, and work together in order to get as much valid information out and to dispel the mainstream media misinformation storm that seemed to never end.  This was done, for the most part, for free.  It was done because we all believe in something enough to want it to move forward.  The reasons for this are varied.  Some of us want to see Bitcoin succeed to build new businesses or industries or markets.  Some of us see the opportunity to overhaul a dinosaur of a financial system that benefits almost no one.  Some see the potential to change the lives of those living in poverty and oppression all over the world.  All are important.