This is a re-post from my bitjoin.me blog posted here on Apr 28, 2016
A letter to the University of Nicosia
Hey guys, i would like to tell you a little about the project i have been working on for the past 18 months. I was also on the MOOC back in 2014 and found it really insightful, i came to the course due to my own interest in trading cryptocurrencies on the exchanges through the winter of 2013/14, eventually getting bored with that i wondered if i might build something useful with this new technology known as blockchain. My idea stems from my time trading all those funky named coins and learning all about the communities behind them and the individual value-twist a new coin would bring to the table, it was a rather wild west time for alt coins and it was fun investigating the various projects and ideas.
Somewhere down the line during October of 2014 i began to realise that there were so many coins being added all the time and the barrier was so low to entry (even i was asked if i wanted my coin registered on Bittrex when all i had was a domain registered and a twitter handle) it made me realise that this technology was going to have a long and troublesome road ahead towards the mainstream especially if a) currencies are so easy to publicise you don’t even need to have one running on a blockchain to be approached by a major exchange and b) validating the persons behind the currency brand, whether a community of enthusiasts or a group of experienced engineers it still remained rather difficult to identify which brands were valid amongst a tidal wave of different coins.
This, coupled with the numerous pump and dump schemes, constant developments of genuine new technologies i.e ColoredCoins / SmartContracts etc, and the just plane inability to understand from the mainstream media made it a super interesting place to be.