It specifically mentions M-Pesa, which is already used by the majority of the continent, but trying to improve and go all-in on something established and accepted like that wouldn't be web 2.0 enough.
Volatility IS DECREASING over time, as the economy and volume/market depth on exchanges are increasing. This has been explained many times on HN.
A linear regression on the volatility line is clearly going down:
http://btcmag.9wizards.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/201...
(Tried Chaikin Volatility, Donchian Channel, ATR, and Bollinger Band)
Chaikin Volatility goes down imho. I do not really know what the others mean. Are they adjusted for volume?
The others largely measure average price spread using slightly different means from each other.
By tweaking some settings, the network could easily be scaled to many times that.
If it ever became an issue (read: the network started to consistently max out the TPS limit), the ceiling would be lifted. If that wasn't sufficient, effort would be put into making the network more efficient. If that wasn't enough, more creative solutions would come into play (offline transaction systems, systems built to manage BTC outside of the blockchain [see CoinKite], etc).
M-Pesa uses local currencies, which frequently lose their value in non-OECD countries.
> M-Pesa uses local currencies, which frequently lose their value in non-OECD countries.
The outrageous swings of bitcoin hour by hour have the same issue. I don't see how using the USD, like Zimbabwe did to prevent inflation coupled with M-Pesa wouldn't be a better solution if you are suggesting the country move to a new system.
Bitcoin loses, at worst, maybe 50% of its value over the course of a few weeks. The Zimbabwe dollar lost 99.99% of its value over the course of a few weeks.
Of course, on larger time scales, the volatility of Bitcoin has been in a distinctly upward direction. So yeah, I guess Bitcoin has kind of the opposite problem of the Zimbabwe Dollar (if you can call it a problem).
And then, of course, Bitcoin will probably stabilize over time. New currencies are not historically stable.
Now the penetration may not be as deep in the other countries as in Kenya but that will change.
You can't just go because it dropped or rose 30% in one day that's it's inflation rate over a year, talk about cherry picking.
Maybe she should have said "Yugoslavia HAD sufferer", but that's a minor grammatical nitpick that would have made the phrasing much more clumsy.
The sprinkbok is native only to South Africa, Botswana, and Angola - would you rail that it should not be described as an African animal because it doesn't cover a majority of the continent?