Could Blockchain Be Used More Appropriately To Facilitate Cashless Society?

Thinking out loud is often done in a haste hints the nature of it.  Thus my thinking out loud in this post isn’t solid, but I like to dabble on here.  One thing people fear about a cashless society is that once the digital numbers are being erased somehow, their worth would be gone without any trace for recovering.  Thus, people are definitely still preferring cash as a mean for emergency backup.  After all, if their digital world is being shut down, they got cash to help them survive daily such as buying foods and whatnot.

Bitcoin is probably going to be an enemy of the banks since banks want to be the middlemen of the transactions.  Bitcoin takes out the middlemen role and allows people to have a direct transaction between the two parties.  In order for the bank to receive commission and gain liquid fund, the bank needs to be able to insert itself into the deal.  Simply put, Bitcoin is against a traditional bank which isn’t accepting Bitcoins!

Banks can accept Bitcoins, but people won’t use banks as of how they would use a traditional bank.  Bitcoin users may want a bank to behave as a trustful Bitcoin exchange to facilitate the Bitcoin transactions in safety manners.  This way any Bitcoin bank can still insert a banking role in a non-traditional way into the deal.  Since Bitcoin will be more transparent — plus demoting a traditional banking role somewhat, I don’t think the banks will be able to create more creative derivative means for creative investments.  I could be wrong since this is thinking out loud session.

Bitcoin is also very similar to a cashless society because it isn’t cash and it’s digital medium.  Taking away Bitcoin, underneath it all is the technology itself which is the blockchain.  The blockchain technology is more important than the clothes it is wearing such as a crypto coin (i.e., Bitcoin).  Why?  I think blockchain technology is good at keeping transactions honest.  This honesty is rather important for cashless society don’t you think?  Nonetheless, current Bitcoin way isn’t helpful for blockchain technology since the implementation is rather crude, allowing people to hack and steal each other Bitcoin without a clear way to trace back to the original owner of the lost Bitcoins.

If I’m not wrong, a will be successful cashless society could use the blockchain technology to keep cashless money honest so the original owner of the money won’t fear the tyranny of a cashless society shutdown event.  By that I mean the only way for a person in such a society to lose wealth is being incriminated with evidence and wealth get confiscated by a court of law.  In such an orderly way the blockchain technology could be used to keep track what money belongs to whom before the exchange takes place and long afterward so a cashless society shutdown event which occurs by any other mean besides the legal ones such as the one I stated just a moment earlier would be a futile effort.

I think people would be able to accept a cashless society when their wealth won’t be suddenly disappeared overnight in a mysterious event.  Of course, people are still going to fear that if they’re innocent and being convicted wrongly; their wealth got confiscated in such a rude event — they could be helpless as they would not be able to survive daily when their digital wealth got shut down in a cashless society.  I think once one accepts a cashless society, one has to accept such possibility as there won’t be any legal cash laying around to act as a legal tender for acquiring daily things.

By writing this blog post, it doesn’t mean I support a cashless society!  I just merely thinking about the possibilities and effects of it all when such a society occurs.  Although China isn’t a purely cashless society, because paper money is still going to be a legal tender within China.  Nonetheless, China is one of those countries that is leading the race in facilitating the use of money through digital devices such as the smartphone.  I think once the money becomes digital numbers, money is indeed facilitating a cashless society.  A cashless society is definitely taking some shapes or forms around the world, and so I’m writing this to amuse myself with both negative and positive possibilities of such a phenomenon.


Break Out (Music by Vinh Nguyen)

I just released a brand new single “Break Out.”  You can download it at for $0.99 a download.  Meanwhile, you can visit my music blog,, to listen to “Break Out” for free for a limited time.  In few days more or so, “Break Out” will be available in various online music stores and services.  Enjoy!!!

Break Out Music Cover Art Pix 1

How Real Is Cyber Threat?

Technology is like anything else that can be used for good or for evil purposes.  Many things have dual purposes or even more than just dual purposes, and technology is no exception to this fact.  Perhaps, there is an exception to the rule, but my small brain cannot think up one for the moment.  Anyhow, there are forces in the world that are trying to use technology for evil purposes.  For an example, from nuclear to cyber threats.  Nuclear threat has existed for many decades already, and by now most people know what MAD means.  In this blog post I’m not going to bother with voicing my opinion on nuclear threat.  Instead, I’m going to focus on voicing my opinion on cyber threat.

Lately, we have seen big powers like USA and China accuse each other of cyber warfare.  It’s obvious that it’s hard to know who is doing what in term of hacking one another in the cyberspace.  Nonetheless, I think I know why cyber threat is a growing concern.

On the surface, before we unravel all the layers of onion, we truly cannot see why there are fusses about cyber security.  For some people, they think that cyber threat can be dealt with best cyber security practices and no more than that.  Of course, it’s true that cyber security measures such as installing well known antivirus software and firewall are definitely going to help counter most cyber vulnerabilities.  Nonetheless, there are other cyber vulnerabilities out there that won’t be eliminated by even the most powerful firewall and antivirus programs.  Why?  I think there are some well kept or new cyber vulnerabilities that have not been dealt with, because these cyber vulnerabilities are well kept secrets or too new.  By using these cyber vulnerabilities and better hacking tools, hackers are able to wreck havocs on the cyber networks of the world.

When we peel more layers of the onion off, we can see that cyber security is very important.  How come?  In my opinion, it’s about a digital future where money mainly get create in digital form.  This is the future trend that our present (the world) is heading for.  Of course, if we just rely on cyber networks for communication and not for banking and monetization, then cyber security can only be boiled down to privacy and few other things but not of money matters.  Nonetheless, cyber networks as in the Internet can be used for electronic commerce, banking, and the whole nine yards.  This means cyber security is needing to be taken seriously, otherwise hackers can just waltz in and erase, steal, change, and do whatever else to the digital money that belong to various money matter institutions such as banking, electronic commerce giants, and whatnot.

I can imagine a scenario that a group of powerful hackers that is sponsored by a powerful organization hacks a cyber system of a country to a point that they erase all of the digital money from this country, leaving this country as a bankrupted nation.  Nonetheless, this country can totally create new digital money out of thin air if she wants to, but will this be ethically, legally, and sensibly?  Can such an incident be covered up easily?  After all, we’re living in a globalized world, and transactions are having been done globally all the time; something like this if to rain upon a country will not be easily covered up.

This is why I think cyber security issues are so important nowadays.  Without proper measures to protect cyber networks, the vulnerable Internet can gradually weaken the trust of digital money transactions, leaving countries and everyday people seek out the traditional means of doing transactions.  Perhaps, this is why we’re seeing the prevalence of traditional transactions today.  Cash is one good example of traditional transactions.

When I’m hearing how one country is having difficulty in protecting a state secret from being leaked out through the cyber networks, I think it’s absurd that such a country is connecting her secret networks to the Internet in the first place.  I think each country should keep her state secrets on an Intranet that won’t be connected to the regular Internet.  Furthermore, such a country needs to provide physical protections to her Intranet, because when hacking cannot be done remotely someone ought to waltz into such a network physically so the hacking can be done eventually.  For an example, stealing state secrets with the usage of a thumb drive (USB devices or similar devices).

In summary, I think the fusses about cyber security threat are real.  This is why we are hearing countries complain about being victims to hack attacks and whatnot.  Corporations are also experiencing cyber security issues, because corporate espionage can be done through cyber networks with ease.  Whenever an entity is connecting to the Internet and it doesn’t matter what type of entity that is, cyber security issues become real just like any other important issue that matters.  Of course, if there is a day that we do not rely on the Internet anymore and money transactions do not take place in the Internet, then cyber threat will not be a threat of anything but only a historical fact.

Personal Note:  The advance of encryption is also important, because encryption can be incorporated into various network tools to secure the Internet transactions.  With strong encryption, it’s harder for hackers to decrypt the Internet transactions into plain text, thus preventing important information from being leaked.

Can Bitcoin Be Real Money?

The bitcoin logo

The bitcoin logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bitcoin is all the rage recently as value per Bitcoin has climbed really high.  As I’m writing this blog post, it’s about $866 per Bitcoin.  Furthermore, more reputable businesses are beginning to join the fun by accepting Bitcoin as payment for business transactions.  With Bitcoin is moving toward mainstream or so as people think it is doing so, we have to wonder how long will Bitcoin would shine right?

As we all know, money has to be backed by something.  Sure, money can be in various currencies, but all currencies have to be backed by something.  In the antiquity time, countries accepted all sorts of bartering items as currencies.  Nonetheless, most of those bartering items could not withstand the test of time.  Gold is one of those few bartering items that have withstood the test of time thus far.  Gold could be used as money in the antiquity time, and even today some parts of the world are still accepting gold as real money.

How can gold be so resilient against time?  For obvious reasons such as scarcity and so forth, gold cannot be seen as just another bartering item.  Scarcity is important, but gold has one more trait that is very very important.  People have often overlooked that gold has always been special throughout the globe and through time.  By special I meant since the antiquity people have found gold to be valuable and sexy.  Since the whole world is being captivated by gold since the antiquity, therefore gold cannot be easily discarded in time.

Bitcoin might have the appealing of gold if it can convince people that it too can be valuable and sexy, worldwide.  As I have mentioned earlier, money (currencies) have to be backed by something, and so we have to wonder what is backing Bitcoin, right?  I think what is backing Bitcoin is how people put Bitcoin into practice throughout the world.

Nonetheless, without a specific government endorsement, can Bitcoin last?  I think Bitcoin is special in that it’s not being bounded or controlled by a specific government, and yet the people throughout the world are willing to have faith in Bitcoin.  With that being said, if Bitcoin doesn’t have the appealing of scarcity, it would probably be just another funny money (i.e., monopoly money).

Bitcoin can be scarce since it does require tremendous amount of effort in mining it.  For an example, one has to be spending real money to buy expensive hardware before one can mine Bitcoin effectively.  One might have to mine 24/7 for months and years before one can have few Bitcoins.  Now, if one is really rich and wealthy, one can build many Bitcoin mining rigs that can churn out Bitcoin really fast.  It is all about being rich in the first place, right?  There is a saying and it might go like this, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

In summary, I think Bitcoin can be real money, but for how long I won’t know.  I know though that if people around the world use Bitcoin as money, then Bitcoin won’t easily be discarded.  If the whole world is using Bitcoin, then not a single country can stop Bitcoin from being used as money.  If the whole world is using Bitcoin, then politics will become less important when it comes down to currency manipulation.  Bitcoin can be traced just like how cash can be traced, but both Bitcoin and cash can be way more stealthy than most forms of currencies.  With stealth as one of its awesome traits, Bitcoin can definitely be facilitated as cash-like money.  With all of that being said, Bitcoin isn’t cash since it’s not physical.  Since Bitcoin has to be used in a digital form, it might just be inconvenient enough that some people will not want to use Bitcoin as their money.  Invention such as smartphone apps to facilitate the Bitcoin transactions might help Bitcoin to be seen as physical cash, because there are so many people who carry their smartphones around.




Is It Truly Necessary To Actually Own Digital Books?







