by Gemma Handy
Know the difference between a whale and a shill? Or when you should SODL or HODL? If you’re thinking of hopping on board the cryptocurrency train, brushing up on the lingo is crucial.
More and more businesses in Antigua are offering customers the chance to pay for goods and services using digital money. Anyone interested in learning more about Bitcoin SV, how it operates and how it can work for you is invited to sign up for a new online course.
Bitcoin Association – which works to advance business with the Bitcoin SV data network – recently unveiled its own virtual academy, which aims to teach residents and businesses alike about the true capabilities of the currency and how it differs from competitors.
It offers a variety of courses aimed at everyone from developers wanting to code and create Bitcoin applications, to business executives and investors, to total beginners.
“The online academy is perfect for people with almost no prior knowledge of Bitcoin because it starts at the very beginning,” Bitcoin Association’s founding president, Jimmy Nguyen, told Observer.
“Most people hear about it but they’ve not read the original white paper that introduced Bitcoin to the world in 2008. The course starts with that; introducing people to the basic theory of Bitcoin and how it was designed to work,” he explained.
“It answers the real basic questions – what is Bitcoin, what was it designed to do – so if you know nothing about it, the online academy is a perfect place to start.”
Courses are offered in three distinct streams. Bitcoin Theory covers the design of Bitcoin as a system as prescribed by its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin Development is geared towards application developers building with Bitcoin, while Bitcoin Infrastructure looks at the underlying architecture of both the Bitcoin network and ledger.
“Each of those will have a series of course levels starting with a basic course and then intermediate and advanced,” Nguyen continued.
“We’ve released our basic course for Bitcoin Theory and it can take someone probably eight to 12 hours to complete. There’s an assessment process and a test at the end and we will issue a completion certificate for each course.
“If you complete multiple tracts we will be moving towards a professional certification that our Bitcoin Association will issue long-term.”
Nguyen said the goal was also to banish “misconceptions” about the world’s first cryptocurrency.
“A lot of people thought Bitcoin was created to support criminal activity because it’s anonymous. That’s not correct – it was created to create more honesty and transparency in our money and payment systems,” he said.
And while Nguyen doesn’t think digital currency will entirely replace cash any time soon, the world is already seeing a trend towards a more cashless society. Tools such as digital wallets will become all the more useful, he said, as the globe battles on to stem coronavirus contagion.
Virtual currencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP also allow for easy and cost-efficient international transfer of funds.
“This is really important for some developing countries such as the Philippines where over 85 percent of people do not have bank accounts,” Nguyen explained.
“You have a lot of migrant workers who work in other countries and send money back to their families, so if you are doing remittance, instead of paying wire transfer or remittance fees, you can send money instantly for less than one 100th of a US cent,” he added.
For more information or to sign up for the courses, visit www.bitcoinsv.academy.