Skip to main content

CARTES examines the pros and cons of Bitcoin

Money is changing. Despite some widely-publicised recent problems, the Bitcoin system is now worth around €7 billion ($8.9 billion) and other ‘crypto-currencies’ such as Ripple are gaining momentum. The success of these pioneers shows that customers are increasingly ready to consider payment systems that are different from traditional dollars, euros and yen.
November 3, 2014 Read time: 2 mins
Money is changing. Despite some widely-publicised recent problems, the Bitcoin system is now worth around €7 billion ($8.9 billion) and other ‘crypto-currencies’ such as Ripple are gaining momentum.

The success of these pioneers shows that customers are increasingly ready to consider payment systems that are different from traditional dollars, euros and yen. But how mature are these new systems? Are they near the point at which ordinary consumers, not just those interested in technology, will start to use them? Will governments allow them to become parallel currencies? What are the dangers of criminals using them to hide their financial transactions? The importance of crypto-currencies is discussed in several presentations throughout today. A panel discussion, ‘The future of Bitcoin’, will consider whether governments may step in to regulate the Bitcoin universe. If they do so, will that remove the anonymous nature of transactions? Chaired by Windsor Holden, research director at Juniper Research, the session will include Eric Larcheveque, CEO of La Maison du Bitcoin and Pierre Noizat, COO and co-founder of Paymium. Sessions throughout the day will look at the benefits of Bitcoin and other crypto- currencies. In one of the most intriguing of these, Richard Perry, vice-president sales, Europe, Middle East and Africa for Biocatch, will tell the audience ‘How to become a successful Bitcoin thief’. Speakers will also consider ‘The future of cash’ and ‘The new generation of digital wallets’. Traditional methods of payment will not disappear quickly, however. And industry experts will also give advice on how legacy service providers can benefit from the new payment methods by completing and integrating services for merchants and buyers using the new systems.

‘Wallets, Bitcoins, new means of payments’,
9:30 - 17:00 Room 2

Related Content

  • Travel restrictions cause ITS professionals' knowledge gap
    February 2, 2012
    Andrew Barriball once again campaigns for senior USDOT officials to see sense and lift some of the restrictions on out-of-state travel for transportation professionals. The ability to attend conferences and exhibitions is not a luxury, he says; it is a valid and cost-effective way of advancing the state of the traffic management art
  • Sampo Hietanen’s mobility mission
    June 17, 2016
    For a decade Sampo Hietanen harboured a vision of an alternative form of mobility, now as CEO of MaaS Finland he is putting theory into practice. Sampo Hietanen has become the embodiment of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – a concept he created 10 years ago while working for Finnish civil engineering giant Destia. “I had been working with the mobile sector on traffic information and started thinking what will happen when this becomes bigger,” he says.
  • Monitoring and transparency preserve enforcement's reputation
    July 30, 2012
    What can be done to preserve automated enforcement's reputation in the face of media and public criticism? Here, system manufacturers and suppliers talk about what they think are the most appropriate business models. Recent events in Italy only served to once again to push automated enforcement into the media spotlight. At the heart of the matter were the numerous alleged instances of local authorities and their contract suppliers of enforcement services colluding to illegally shorten amber signal phase tim
  • Innovative traffic information system
    January 31, 2012
    From the roadside James Foster compiles some eye-catching news, deployments and product picks from the work zone