[post title and “de-centering” in general is being adapted from language in this book.]

In the past month, a typical conversation with me usually involves bitcoins [relax, I’ll explain these in a minute].

It typically involves bitcoins and hyperbole.

It typically goes something like this:

– Hey [interrupting and changing the topic of conversation abruptly] – have you heard of bitcoins?

– No.

– I hadn’t either until recently. I’m basically trying to find someone to tell me why I shouldn’t invest in them, because they sounds like they’re going to kinda take over the world.

– What are they…

What Are they?

That’s where I get confused… I’m not really sure.

As I read more about them and follow random message boards the best I can get is that a bitcoin is a digital currency. Here’s a great, digestible video about bitcoins:

 

 

So what?

So here’s the thing: a bitcoin isn’t tied to any government, is constantly limited in quantity (theoretically making them steadily increase in value over time) and can be traded anonymously.

There’s a whole bunch of technical stuff behind all of this and the market of exchange for bitcoins is so small that single investors can regularly change the value of a bitcoin – in the past week I saw the value of a bitcoin jump from $6 to over $30.

[Edit 6/13: and Boom! a day after posting, the Economist writes a feature on bitcoins.]
 

Why does this matter?

Last month, the U.S. government effectively shut down online poker playing within the country. I know this because it happened while I was playing (I was supposed to be writing… but don’t worry about that). One minute I’m in a hand of limit hold-em, running outside to check the mail and the next, I come back to find out I am no longer weclomed at this table. Because I am playing with U.S. dollars, the U.S. government and its laws control what I do and what kinds of activities I engage in. Sure, I get it.

However, what happens when we de-center money from government?

The short answer is I don’t know … and I bet it can be problematic. Already there are smatterings of articles about the fact that bitcoins can (and in some cases are) being used to buy almost anything – from Alpaca socks to illicit drugs.

Again, no one person or entity controls or owns bitcoins. I am sure various national governments are keeping an eye on the fledging efforts to democratize currency (especially as a bi-product of bitcoins, namecoins, make currency tied even more closely to personal control).

So Here’s the Thing – Time for Some Ed. Talk

In the past publishing was controlled by nations and (much later) large corporations. McLuhan makes clear the nationalistic purposes the printing press played in reifing specific traits and identity within a nascent print-literate nation.

What’s happened to how we engage with writing, literature, and the nature of publishing now that the internet has made it a “free” enterprise? As we see explosions in creativity, expansion in discourse, and newly entangled struggles between old-world copyright and new-world Creative Commons-like control, one thing is certain: cutting the tether between publishing and a select few corporate entities has profound paragidm shifts on culture, interaction, and learning.

Bitcoins – whether they take off or a rival product emerges – are poised to do the same thing for currency that the internet has done for publishing. How much more do we shift toward a Temporary Autonomous Zone (T.A.Z.) when we are no longer held to ordained commerce?

And here’s where I’m more concerned: even if bitcoins don’t take off, I’ve been thinking about an educational parallel. What happens to education when it too becomes decentered from specific forms of government and definitions of citizenship? I write this not from a purely anarchistic perspective. My research is largely concerned with civic engagement and how young people formulate or understand their own civic identity. What happens to democratic education when it is also democratized? Perhaps this is a shift toward a TAZ of educational reform – instead of districts tied to cities, states, and the country, schooles may be aligned to principles, common interests, etc. And where do standards fit into this? Perhaps more than anywhere else, we see educational standards continue to play the role the printing press did in the sixteenth century – without standards, do our schools lose their identity as “American”? Is this necessarily a bad thing? We’re not exactly talking coins anymore, are we? The premise of a bitcoin, however, is what’s begun this line of thought for me.

Presently, I have my finger poised above the equivalent of the “buy” button on Mt. Gox (the central site for exchange of bitcoins) – I don’t know what’s going to come of it, but I’m curious enough to exchange a capital I know well for one I don’t if it means getting to participate in a new mode of exchange.