Bitcoin in Belgium is a thriving yet erratic market. Hence, the Belgian Bitcoin Association is here to support Bitcoin users in Belgium. For our very first interview, our staff has managed to talk to Chris D’Costa, founding director of the Belgian Bitcoin Association about bitcoin in Europe.

Coin News Europe: Hi, thank you very much for joining us. Kindly tell us something about yourself and the company you represent.

Chris D’Costa: Hello. My name is Chris D’Costa, and I am a founding director and secretary of the Belgian Bitcoin Association, and the founder and Lead Developer of Meek – a hardware startup in the crypto space. I’m here mainly to talk about the association. We launched in the BBA in November 2013 with a group of members who had been interested in Bitcoin since the early days. We saw a need to develop the lines of communication between users and government bodies, and in particular the European Commission to explain the technology and promote its use and adoption.

Coin News Europe: What are some challenges you’ve encountered with the BBA?

Chris D’Costa: The main challenges we faced were raising funds and motivating our members to participate in the defining and taking part in promotional activities. Back then publicity was highly negative and merchants were very wary of Bitcoin. That’s still somewhat the case now, although in recent months we have seen every growing interest coming from the public and media.

Coin News Europe: How can the BBA overcome the challenges of renewing technology nowadays?

Chris D’Costa: We mainly don’t have technological challenges, but we still have funding and operational challenges. We are looking to engage some staff in the coming months to deal with new membership enquiries. For external bodies such as government or businesses, the BBA is quite successful in providing solid independent advice both legal and technical, and conducting presentations at Universities across the country. For the BBA members we have been successful in providing clarity on the legal status in Belgium. Many enquiries focus on how to declare winning or losses and this we are able to clarify, with the caveat that things may change in future. In the near future we hope to clear some of the backlog of enquiries, and start some interesting promotional activities.

Coin News Europe: Interesting. What initiated your interest in bitcoin or cryptocurrencies, and how have they transformed the way you live?

Chris D’Costa: Personally, my initial interest was driven by an understanding that we have the ability to create a corruption free parallel financial system. Of course, I’d be accused of libertarianism, but the technology is much more important than political aspects and I’m of course interested in that too. It has transformed some aspects of how I personally interact with paying and receiving money from friends and family. I am certain this will grow in future. The main pro is that it allows people to control their own finances, and send units of value to anyone, anywhere as fast as email, and more securely than any bank. The cons are that it is still very technical, and probably the most important aspect is that people are unable to tell the difference between a get-rich-quick scam ICO, and a genuine crypto project with real teams and genuine business models. It’s also not clear what part greed is playing in the current market. With crypto values so high, it’s entirely possible that we could see a correction, that would cause the whole space to be a victim of its own success. This is really unknown territory, and it could go either way, spelling the end of banking as we know it too. In terms of missing aspects, we need far better/less technical key management hardware and software. That’s what my company Meek is working on.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

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