Preface.

Let’s be honest, 2014 wasn’t a great year for Bitcoin. Mt. Gox was hacked, Butterfly Labs has a pending class action lawsuit, and bitcoin’s price dropped 67%. Not only that, 2015 kicked off with Bitstamp having 19,000 coins stolen. Over the last six years, bitcoin has been associated with scams, hacks, black market trading, and white collar crime in general. This bad press does not bode well for the future of bitcoin.

Trust is wavering in the community, for good reason. And even if a new person shows interest in Bitcoin, it’s harder for them to justify the risk. The resources to learn aren't easily accessible and the reputation is questionable at best. They don’t know who they can trust or what to believe. In order for bitcoin to survive, we need the public to understand, trust, and participate.

Since inception, Bitcoin wasn't created as a user friendly concept. Satoshi created a minimal viable product, more than a scalable technology. As a result, the outward facing visual assets for many of the related projects are anything but appealing or easy to use. Not to mention the overall feeling from the community is exclusionary for anyone not in the know. Companies like Coinbase, BitPay, and Chain are paving the way for more transparent, intuitive, and user focused products.

This series will explore the current issues with design in Bitcoin. We need to refresh the public’s perception and to do so we have to change how we present ourselves. 2015 will be a make it or break it year. It’s time for the community to truly embrace design, usability, and standardization.