The digital currency industry is expanding rapidly and bitcoin is becoming more and more of mainstream use; in fact the digital currency industry is currently creating a new set of “employment market” never seen before. To meet the constant demands of this new industry growth, Companies are starting to require the expert hand of qualified professionals to ensure the best quality of their services and to keep up with developments and the ever-growing competition in the sector. With regulations at sight, digital currency is facing an uncertain future. No matter the outcome, we can firmly say that it’s an obvious sign that digital currency and its technology potential are finally being widely recognized.
To get an expert opinion about these and other aspects of the current digital currency situation, Bitcoinist arranged a written interview with David Berger, Digital Currency Council (DCC) President and founder:
The Digital Currency Council (DCC) strives to offer the proper certification for professionals acting in the digital currency field. What were the requirements used to establish a certified course and how did you decide what was the correct educational program to follow?
The DCC is training, certifying, and connecting professionals to new prospective clients. Our aim is to support our members in capturing the opportunities presenting themselves in the digital currency economy. The DCC has established a set of core competencies which are being regularly reviewed by our curriculum committee – a group of well-respected digital currency experts from the fields of accounting, law and finance. These core competencies inform the existing training curriculum, will influence the development of our continuing education, and will be central to the launch of the DCC certification exam in December.
Is there a big affluence of people taking the DCC Digital Currency Council courses? Have you noticed a growing number of interested people?
Over 400 professionals have joined the DCC in the one month since its launch. The membership has been extremely engaged with the coursework. The DCC has already generated multiple clients’ referrals and will soon be opening new channels that will enable the members to connect with each other.
The crypto currencies industry is growing exponentially and every day we see new business come out with new service proposals and bright solutions being implemented over the decentralized nature that the bitcoin protocol can offer. However, the decentralized nature of the protocol is what most frightens the traditional banking model. How do you think the Industry will be 10 years from now? Do you think that we will see a wide adoption and acceptance of decentralized services over the traditional centralized services?
10 years from now you will see applications of digital currencies that you have yet to imagine. The ability to program each Satoshi (.00000001 bitcoin) is quite remarkable. That said, Bitcoin will be adopted if it’s easy to use for a given use case. If another means of exchange – whether paper money or something else – is easier for a given use, then it’s likely it will exist alongside bitcoin.
Last week we have seen the world’s largest bitcoin wallet provider, Blockchain.info, accept over $30 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Wicklow Capital and others. We know that the Blockchain currently manages about 2.3 million wallets and that the competition is getting stronger. What more can you tell us about this sudden interest in the blockchain?
I’m not sure that I’d characterize the interest as “sudden”. Blockchain.info has been one of the leading platforms for quite some time. I think Lightspeed and others saw the strong team and tremendous opportunity in front of Blockchain.info and wanted to be supportive. Blockchain.info is an exciting company with a huge opportunity ahead of it.
David Byrne, Overstock CEO has been a major supporter of digital currencies and the blockchain technology. Recently he has confirmed that the Company is developing a platform that will have the potential to disrupt the traditional Wall Street Market model. We would much like to hear your comments on this subject.
I love that we live in a time when people aren’t afraid to do something better, even when the incumbent provider is a huge entity with significant resources. I look forward to seeing what this group develops.
The period of counterproposals for BitLicence Regulation program is coming to an end. How do you think it will be the outcome of BitLicence, and what’s your opinion about the impact of regulation over digital currencies?
The BitLicense will have a significant impact on the future of the digital currency economy. I know that the NYDFS is looking to strike a balance between protecting the citizens of the State of New York and promoting innovation within the State’s borders. The details of that balance will make a big difference to Bitcoin’s future. Further, it’s critical that this regulation provides some certainty about regulation and its enforcement to the community. Certainty is always better than opacity when building any business.
This month there has been a series of problems related to Hacks, scams and frauds in the crypto currency scene. Unfortunately, this type of situation seems to be recurrent on the ecosystem. How do you think the ecosystem will react and develop protection against this kind of issues?
New technologies seem to attract bad actors. You may recall when ATM muggings seemed to be a nightly occurrence and when paedophiles roamed free on the internet. Security measures – like cameras at ATM machines and police surveillance in chat rooms – have largely mitigated these dangers, though there remains some risk in using ATM machines and allowing small children to go unsupervised in chat rooms. There is certainly more risk mitigation that needs to be developed in the Bitcoin economy and I have no doubt that smart entrepreneurs are already working on it. It’s important for the media reports to accurately separate the technology from a minority of the actors who have utilized the technology.
Photo source: DCC