Another great Meetup! Our third meetup was a huge success with over 10 attendees including Investors, Crowd-funders, website directors and coin collectors. With the recent price performance and news, there was much to discuss and debate.

Ian, an Investor, and I spent time discussing the feasibility of Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. He expressed skepticism in Bitcoin’s ability to function as currency suggesting that people may find it difficult to trust or use due to the volatile nature of it’s price. In an effort to change his opinion, I showed him the Android Bridgewalker app. The app enables users to maintain a balance in Euros by converting back and forth between the two currencies. I also explained how it is possible for developers to use various exchange sites API’s to automatically adjust the prices of products denominated in BTC. Gary of Bitcoin Solutions Ltd was also happy to explain the many utilities of Bitcoin demonstrating there is more value to the network than just the currency.

Alexis, an Investment Analyst at Crowdcube Limited, showed great interest and excitement for producing a Bitcoin based crowd funding platform. We briefly discussed a number of business concepts which could potentially be financed via crowdfunding. More developed ideas will be released in the future.

Stephen, General Manager of Bitcoins UK, talked about his goals for the bitcoins.co.uk social network. He revealed plans to make his site the ‘goto’ Bitcoin site in the UK. It was suggested that a service to match Bitcoin merchants to Bitcoin consumers would have much value. I am sure many Bitcoin ‘preachers’ have been asked by skeptics “what can I actually do with Bitcoin?”. A consumer to merchant matching service would make this a trivial question to answer and with the news of bitmit.net closing, the Bitcoin space is again in need of a Ebay like market place.

Overall it was a great evening with the surprising event of a local coin collector seeking an original series Casascius physical Bitcoin. It’s amazing to see the Meetup group attract a number of varying people. With discussions ranging from potential business ideas to self-regulatory organisations (SROs), I am confident that these meetups will lead to productive developments within the UK Bitcoin space.