Bitcoin wallet sync time

I recently had a chance to sit down with Adam O’Brien, a Bitcoin entrepreneur from Edmonton, a city in the Canadian province of Alberta. For a short time I was able to live vicariously through this young fellow who is living the dream of dedicating himself to building the Bitcoin economy. With a glass of scotch at my side, I took some time to swap stories with Adam on personal histories, why we’re interested in Bitcoin and what we see for the future. It’s people like Adam, doing the legwork required, that are positioning Bitcoin for ever greater and greater adoption phases among the general population and it’s damned admirable.

After taking a bit of time to let some of the scotch settle, I mentioned an idea to Adam that he seemed to like and given a chance to think about it more today, I thought perhaps I should share it to see if it piques any interest. I had mentioned that I had, for some time, thought that Bitcoin ATMs could be the key to decentralizing (or distributing) Bitcoin exchange. There would be hurdles to overcome of course, but I think this merits serious thought from Bitcoin ATM manufacturers, operators and customers.

Firstly, consider the problems that exist and create a market opportunity. Bitcoin users can, fairly commonly, be heard to opine on the issue of being so heavily dependant on centrally managed Bitcoin exchanges. While the collapse of MT GOX is the most recent Bitcoin exchange debacle to have taken place, it’s not the only one that has seen people lose their Bitcoin. We Exchange is currently stringing depositors along after abruptly shutting down, leaving customers to wonder if they’ll ever see their Bitcoin deposits again. Canadian Bitcoin exchange Flexcoin had to close its doors after being hacked, resulting in the apparent theft of over half a million dollars worth of Bitcoin.