'There are ideas to use Bitcoin to alleviate poverty' - expert

Georgios Papadopoulos is an economist and philosopher whose research gravitates toward money and its socioeconomic functions, says that “Bitcoin is relatively international, and there are some ideas to use it to alleviate poverty in the less developed countries, e.g. by making possible the transfer of funds from migrants who work in the rich countries to their families in the poorest regions of the world without having to pay the extortionate rates of banks and companies.” The Voice of Russia discussed the issue with Mr. Papadopoulos in an exclusive interview.
What are the ways to monetize Bitcoin, since it is not de facto a currency and is exchanged for traditional media of payment?
I guess the easiest way is that if you have a store and you have to sell something, you can accept Bitcoins. But usually people don’t have the facilities to do that. So, the way to do it actually or the most followed way is just go to a bureau of currencies and just buy Bitcoins by transferring money from your bank account or your credit card.
But I have to say that this is not the very good moment to do it, especially because of the volatility of the currency, but also because of the value of the currency and there are a lot of frauds now involved and a lot of people are trying to speculate or extract funds. So, you have to be extremely careful. But there are plenty of market places around, there is one also in Russia where Bitcoins can be exchanged for rubles, and almost everywhere in the developed world there are brokers where you can bring your money and buy Bitcoins.
Bitcoin is essentially a series of letters and number generated randomly, which means that the number of Bitcoins is finite. What are we to expect once it reaches its physical limit?
There already is an integrated limit in how much Bitcoins can be produced. And actually, the whole idea of the Bitcoin is to limit the supply of the currency. The longer we are going in time and the longer the life of Bitcoin is, the less Bitcoins are created. And actually, everybody can look online and see how many Bitcoins are going to be created in the future. And now, we are down to 12 054 000 Bitcoins that will be coined in the future.

And this somehow also explains the fact that the growth of the value of Bitcoin is somehow exponential, because the expectation is that as we go further in time, there will be less and less Bitcoins. With the growing demand it is obvious that the value is going to rise.
And actually, this is also a very interesting particularity of the Bitcoin. Instead of fixing its value to a particular major currency, the dollar or the euro, they instead fixed the amount of Bitcoins that are available. So, in that sense they safeguarded the value.
Bitcoin is gaining popularity in China, which has been in the news for the past couple of days. What prospects are there for Bitcoin going global?
Yes, this is true. And one of the biggest online stores in China – Baidu – has started to accept Bitcoins. But I think the main cause of the popularity of Bitcoin is of course the whole discussion about the speculation and the possibility a lot of people see to make money really fast. So, as long as this kind of bubble is unfolding and there is media, and visibility for the currency, we would see more and more people around the globe getting excited about it and even thinking about buying Bitcoins.
Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2013_11_30/There-are-ideas-to-use-Bitcoin-to-to-alleviate-poverty-expert-5490/