Where is Bitcoin 2.0 heading?

Live webcast http://cybersalon.org (http://t.co/kUrafI5PZC)from 19.15 BST

Please Note: Preston Byrne will not be speaking, but instead we have Ben Ingram from SWARM- 'the Facebook of crowdfunding'.

Is Bitcoin in fact the most disruptive technology since the Internet itself?

It's a much deeper concept than currency. It's the idea of distributed trust.

In 20 years, we’ll talk about Bitcoin like we talk about the Internet today, We just need time for it to play it out.

• Marc Andreessen (VC and founder of Netscape)

As VCs rush to fund start-ups that use Bitcoin's Blockchain technology we ask: Will Bitcoin's real innovation, its platform, really build completely new ways of interacting online?

What are the generation of apps?

Advocates argue that Bitcoin has the capacity to address not simply money issuance but other crucial questions of trust, financial privacy, transparency and freedom of expression.

Critics claim that it is only used for money laundering, gambling and drug dealing. They also point to its wild volatility as evidence that it functions as a poor store of value that will make economic activity ultimately less productive.

Speakers

Jon Matonis- Executive Director, The Bitcoin Foundation (https://bitcoinfoundation.org/)

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A money researcher and crypto economist from George Washington University, Jon advises startups in Bitcoin, gaming, mobile and prepaid organizations. A tech contributor to Forbes Magazine and editor of The Monetary Future, Jon serves on the editorial board of Bitcoin Magazine. Previously CEO of Hushmail and Chief Forex Trader at VISA and held senior posts at Sumitomo Bank and VeriSign.

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Stephan Tual- Chief Communications Officer, Ethereum (https://www.ethereum.org/)

Ethereum is “Cryptocurrency 2.0″. It’s a decentralized mining network and software development platform rolled into one, and it will allow people to create their own altcoins, and other types of crypto.

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Niki Wiles -Community Relations, Counterparty (https://www.counterparty.co/)

Counterparty is a peer-to-peer finance platform and decentralized exchange built on Bitcoin. He has been involved with distributed finance since the early days of Bitcoin, and has an eclectic background in IT, finance and marketing.

Ben Ingram, COO, SWARM (http://www.swarmcorp.com/)- "The Facebook of crowdfunding"

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Ben is a mainstream entrepreneur. Post sale of his strategic consulting and system integration company (named the most recognised brand in cloud software services), Ben had the opportunity to once again look for the 'next big thing’. His startup Swarm (http://www.swarmcorp.com/) is a revolutionary approach to enterprise capital & their new model for distributed crowd funding is the talk of the internet.

“This, right now, is the moment, when crypto equities emerge as the most profoundly impactful technology of this century. In 2014, progressive VC portfolios will be built on the blockchain.”

SWARM is a new approach to crowd funding that uses Blockchain technology to outpace traditional platforms like Kickstarter and which aims to accelerate the evolution of the crypto-currency community and explore the possibilities of issuing new crypto-tokens. They recently launched to a warm reception, raising close to £1m in a week.

Chair: Richard Boase (http://www.coindesk.com/author/richard-boase), Cybersalon/UK Digital Currency Association (http://www.digitalcurrencyassociation.org.uk/)

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At this Cybersalon we will be asking:

1. Is Bitcoin likely to form the basis of the new Internet of Money and Trust?
2. What is 'Blockchain' technology and how are new apps using it?
3. What is Bitcoin teaching us about global consensus, decentralisation and open source technologies?

BUY TICKETS USING BITCOIN ON

http://cybersalon.org/bitcoinheading

OR BUY TICKETS ON MEETUP WITH VISA OR PAYPAL.

Background

Bitcoin (which is now known as a “CryptoCurrency" or Hidden Currency) has fluctuated from $0.0001 to US $1,200 in the span of 5 years.

Advocates cite its capacity to be a truly global, digital currency- to lower remittance and cross border transfer costs particularly with regards to developing economies and its power to remove politics from the money supply.

Bitcoin's main attraction, they claim, is that all other banking and monetary systems are ‘pre-internet’ technologies but Bitcoin offers us the potential to build an entirely new system of global financial consensus, even acting as a global reserve currency.

So if currency is simply the first application for this Blockchain technology, what else is in the pipeline? Initiatives such as Ethereum, Coloured Coins, Mastercoin, Counterparty and Namecoin suggest decentralised DNS lookup system, decentralised stock, bond and equities markets, asset and property registration notary services and more.

More about Bitcoin 2.0

The value of the Bitcoin platform is that it can be used for other means than as a currency for instance to transfer goods directly from person to person securely without third party verification.