A group of users of electronic currency works to implement in the Ciutat Vella in Barcelona, the model launched in Serrano Street in Madrid.
ATM bitcoins in Barcelona image
Create in Barcelona “Carrer” bitcoin. This is the aim of a group of lovers of digital currency users who want to launch an initiative to get the highest number of trades in the same area adopt this new form of payment. The drivers do not reveal what street in the Catalan capital has put the focus, but admit that the chosen Ciutat Vella district is the combination of three elements that can be key to meet the challenge. “It’s a central location with great commercial and very touristy concentration,” says one of its promoters, Borja Rossell, who is also CEO of BTCpoint, developer ATMs bitcoins.
Contact round the shops begin in the coming days. The promoters want to avoid the franchise and concentrate on small businesses that may be more susceptible to adopt electronic currency. According Rossell, cost-free for merchants since “there are many applications that allow purchases with bitcoins”. “Just a mobile or tablet,” he adds.
The volunteer group -are 15- have set a goal to have 20 to 30 business concentrates on a street or area – “less than 500 meters away from each others, qualifies Rossell” – which allow to operate with bitcoins Mobile World Congress to be held next March. A good showcase to gain followers, considering that those days Barcelona becomes the global epicenter of technology and innovation universe where the virtual currency part.
If successful, it will be the second time that the congress is used to publicize this new currency. In the last edition was installed provisionally an ATM bitcoins in the Diagonal Mar Shopping Centre decline since the council come to appreciate this initiative to “not be a legal tender and not being regulated”.
Discreet host
The action is a replica of the bitcoin community project that has developed in Madrid on Calle Serrano, known as the ‘Golden Mile’, which already can buy bitcoins in a few places. “Actually, the idea of the United States and the countries of northern Europe where more experience here in this type of action,” admits Rossell. The figures speak for themselves. According to the web coinmap.org in the Catalan capital there are only twenty merchants that accept bitcoins and, from a month ago, a single point where buy and sell -in FabCafé Barcelona within MOB- coworking space, an amount well below cities like London or New York, where the phenomenon of criptomoneda is more advanced.
For Alex Puig, technological and entrepreneurial expert bitcoins, the explanation to the discrete popularity in Spain and Catalunya lies in the “fear” and the need for us to “someone to give us explanations, protect us.” And the bitcoin, encrypted, global and volatile currency are beyond the control of banks, states and international organizations. “It’s an ingrained cultural issue and so the development of bitcoins, which is not regulated by anyone, is slower than elsewhere,” he says. According to him, the pulse of this digital currency could be taken to a hypothetical independence of Catalonia. “It recurrent think in a new country could adopt the 2.0 bitcoin as currency, but that would depend on the degree of confidence that had”.
Currency ‘at risk’
The bitcoins have on economic and political context your greatest ally. Your quote, for example, skyrocketed during the playpen of Cyprus last year.
Proponents see it as a real alternative and response to management that the troika has made the crisis. In recent times, with the emergence of new political parties Bitcoins We can have a circle, but is almost inactivo- has been speculated that the use of bitcoins extends leveraging the political situation, but Juan Ramón Rallo, Doctor of Economics and Director of the Instituto Juan de Mariana, is categorical in this regard: “the bitcoin has no ideology and if you have it would have a liberal pedigree”.
There where many see a solution, others are simply “a risk”. “Since its inception in 2009, there have been ups and downs and not really know why. Maybe is good, but can lead to speculators and speculation, and the absence of regulation, to make illegal transactions easier, “says Professor of Financial Economics at the UPF, Oriol Amat. According to him, their characteristics are very similar to other financial experiences that have ended badly, referring to the scandal of Philatelic Forum in 2006 left 500,000 affected by the scam of the seals. The European Banking Authority (EBA) a year ago and warned of the dangers associated with virtual currencies. Bitcoin is one of them, although there are more than a hundred.
“It is paradoxical alert when banks are being more interested in knowing how bitcoins work and adapt its operation to the protocols themselves,” says Puig. “For me the big mystery is the current financial system is very opaque and it is very difficult to access,” he concludes.
Courtesy Avantgarde Limousine Barcelona
EXECUTIVE CHAUFFEUR BARCELONA 