Why?

30 Jul 2014

So, why am I starting a journal?

I felt that I needed to start recording down both what I'm doing, and my thoughts/opinions as they stand. At the moment it will largely be around Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Given my current area of study I will focus on areas around merchant adoption, but that doesn't mean that I won't write about other areas that interest me.

Putting this journal online gives me a record of what I thought, and how that changes over time. Additionally it will hopefully force me to clarify my thoughts by organising it in a coherent structure rather than just abstract thoughts in my head. I've decided to not call it a blog as the ideas that I'm aiming to present are closer to evergreen content, things that aren't just flashes in the pan, but rather content that lasts, well at least as well as anything last in technology. In addition articles are likely to be updated and changed to try and keep them up to date and relevant when appropriate.

My personal reasoning behind this is a little selfish in that I've tried keeping journals, I've tried to write little notes to myself, and I simply forget after a few weeks. Writing is something that tends to slip through the cracks. So, having a public forum to present my ideas might force me to be more regular, thorough and hopefully insightful with my ideas.

Beyond the purpose of self development some of the ideas that I'm working on might provide some benefit to the broader community. My work on understanding the adoption of Bitcoin is not from the more common Economic/Financial or Engineering/Computer Science perspective that makes up most of the academic literature, and most of my thoughts fall somewhat outside the echo chamber of Reddit and their Bitcoin community. So providing a somewhat Information Systems centric view on the cryptocurrency community may create some novel insights.

Hopefully the articles prove useful.