Bitcoin is the biggest threat to fiat currencies since the credit crunch, and everyone wants a piece of it. But while there’s been hundreds, if not thousands, of innovations around the digital currency, not all of them do well.
Just look at Mt. Gox, the exchange house that went bankrupt after losing 650,000 bitcoins. However, that doesn’t mean people have stopped trying.
Here we explore five cool projects doing fun – and sometimes dangerous – things with Bitcoin.
Coinworld
Whoever said playing games is a waste of time? Coinworld is a project that wants to let you earn bitcoins while you play Minecraft.
The creators claim the bitcoin-supported Minecraft server would be a world first.
Gamers building structures in the game could charge access to their creations, or mine materials and sell them.
The creators add on Coinfunder.com (a Kickstarter for Bitcoin projects): "Players can use a bank account to earn interest while they play, gamble at the casino, and do whatever else builders make!"
The project seems to have missed its funding target of five bitcoins by May 1, but it still appears to be live.
The money would fund renting a server, hiring developers and admins and building the website.
Bitcoin at MIT
Undergrads at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will all be given $100 in bitcoins at the start of next semester, after a couple of bright sparks wanted to experiment with the digital currency.
Jeremy Rubin, a sophomore, and Dan Elitzer, an MBA candidate, hope the scheme could see MIT become a self-contained economy after raising half a million dollars to support the initiative from alumni.
With a critical mass of users, the pair believe people may begin to buy and sell things with other students using the currency more than bitcoin users currently do – most are isolated from each other in locations spanning the globe.
Bitcoin Education Project
This ambitious initiative aims to attract one million "active, passionate" new users to Bitcoin by the end of 2014.
To do that, the group’s released three free online courses that introduce and explain the concept of Bitcoin to people.
The group expands: "The course is divided into several sections. The Core Lecture Path serves as a comprehensive introduction for beginners on all relevant topics necessary to have a deep understanding of Bitcoin including why Bitcoins have value, why they can be used for anonymous transactions, the current economy of Bitcoins, how they are made and distributed as well as speculation."
Dark Wallet
We’re not too sure what led to the choice of name here. It sounds kind of evil, like ‘Dark Lord’. Nevertheless, be assured that this project’s not quite as dastardly as its name suggests.
Not quite, but not far off. Dark Wallet is a nightmare for regulators struggling to pin down ways to stop criminals using Bitcoin for illegal activities. That’s because the software seeks to completely anonymise transactions that go in the virtual, public ledger, blockchain.info.
The group of coders appear to support the libertarian spirit originally associated with the non-fiat cryptocurrency, but their efforts could seriously harm other Bitcoin users’ hopes that governments will spur widespread adoption by introducing regulation: this could persuade regulators that it’s better to step away from Bitcoin than to try and make it safer.
Sarafu.net
We’ve heard before that Bitcoin has large potential in countries where the national currency is unstable, and web-based wallet Sarafu.net aims to cash in on that.
The wallet lets anyone with a feature phone – as opposed to a smartphone – send and receive bitcoins, and was built mainly to target the African market.
Sarafu.net uses a username and password log-in system, and its coding means it should work anywhere there is internet access.
