589 sats \ 0 replies \ @timechain OP 12 Dec 2022 \ parent \ on: What Bitcoin project would you fund? bitcoin
Honestly, love this idea. The history of Bitcoin and digital assets is indeed a rich one. (Mt.Gox was originally meant to be a Magic the Gathering Online Xchange, of digital trading cards) You know, back in the day, there was a time where a way to get Bitcoin involved first buying "Linden Dollars" and then "selling" (trading) it for Bitcoin. I think the person selling Bitcoin was unable to accept cards or something.
Brock Pierce, early Bitcoin foundation leader, EOS scammer and weird Burning Man dude/presidential candidate/OG Tether Founder was first exposed to digital currencies by starting a World of Warcraft chinese gold farming operation that he sold on a website that had the highest Paypal revenue second to only Ebay for years.
But yeah, most of the earliest usecases of Bitcoin were digital/virtual assets. In-game currencies, vpn services, data hosting services (Eddie Snowden's data dump was hosted on servers bought with Bitcoin) and gift card/phone codes. (I think Bitrefill is still the biggest Bitcoin merchant).
Imagine if Silk Road (Bitcoin's first major real life market) didn't ever need to mail drugs anywhere. If you were able to close it down, another could pop up. Virtual Assets are a natural fit with Bitcoin.
I feel like Jack's (Dorsey) TBD could be great for this. Its an uncensorable open-source exchange protocol I am looking forward to being released. Most people will use it 'white-market' style employing deventralized IDs (DIDs) but I'm sure there will be some gray- and black-market forks popping up.