Bitcoin has a relatively young history from its mysterious inception in 2009 compared with the fiat currency that has been around for the longest of time. With its meteoric rise in value against the USD since mid 2010, its popularity has only followed suit.
Just recently in December 2017, a couple in Bangalore, India tied the knot with a Bitcoin-themed wedding. Both tech entrepreneurs, Prashant Sharma and Niti Shree welcomed their guests with their drinks menu “UNCRYPTED – The Virgin Bar” with aptly named concoctions such as Ethereum, Ripple, Dash, Litecoin, etc. The happy couple brainstormed on the perfect wedding gift wish list that combined tech, future, and gifting and found Bitcoin to be the perfect answer and solution. To facilitate this, they provided an on-the-spot Bitcoin purchase kiosk at their wedding via Zebpay, India’s pathway for a quick and easy purchase of cryptocurrencies with headquarters in Singapore.
Out of the 200 guests, 185 of them gifted cryptocurrencies as per their request. The couple hopes to hold onto the cryptocurrencies till its value grow and use that to support education equality in India.
End of 2017 also saw the introduction of CryptoKitties, a game consisting of virtual cats that are collectible, tradable, and can also breed. Built using blockchain technology, every cat is unique and cannot be replicated or destroyed. Purchases can only be made with ethereum, the currency that runs the Ethereum network. These cats can come with a sizable price tag as well with more than 10 cats already being sold for more than USD$100,000.
In Japan where Bitcoin is legally accepted as a payment method, they even have their own girl pop group called Virtual Currency Girls with team members representing various cryptocurrency symbols and performing songs like “The Moon, Cryptocurrencies and Me.” The group aims to support the usage of cryptocurrencies by singing about online security and being aware about crypto scams and along with that only accepts payment for their debut concert in cryptocurrencies.
There are aplenty variations of such “craze” emerging from the cryptocurrency hype including the rise of a parody cryptocurrency, Dogecoin that managed to achieve a value of more than USD$1 billion. And then there was the sale of 2 pizzas from Papa John’s for 10,000 bitcoin in 2010, which would amount to approximately USD$100 million now making it the most expensive pizza ever. This emerging technology is creating a “storm” and the one thing for sure is that all the participants will come out changed forever – it is a game changer.
