bitcoin speech outline

8/10/2019 Bitcoin Speech Outline

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Name: Karl Heintz

Title: Introduction to Bitcoin

General Purpose: To inform.

Specific Purpose: To inform my audience about the development of Bitcoin, what Bitcoin

is, and recent developments concerning Bitcoin.

Introduction

I. Attention Getter: What would your reaction be if I told you that there is a

form of currency now worth over $1,000 USD per unit?

II. Relevance of Topic to Audience: This actually describes a new currency

called Bitcoin, which has been in the news over the recent year.

III. Thesis Statement: Today you will learn about Bitcoin, a new form of e-

currency that has been in the news over the past year.

IV. Speakers Credibility:I learned about Bitcoin a few years ago, and have been

reading frequently about it since.

V. Preview of Main Points: In this presentation you will learn a short history of

Bitcoins development, what Bitcoin is, and about two recent developments

concerning Bitcoin.

Transition/Connective to Body: I will now move onto some of the history of Bitcoin.

Body


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I. I will now talk a little bit about the history of Bitcoin.

A. The basic idea of bitcoin began among a group now known as the

crypto-punks, the group responsible for such developments as

BitTorrent (AmherstMedia).

B. In 1998, Wei Dai first suggested the idea of a new form of currency that

uses cryptography to control its creation and transactions, rather than a

central authority (Bitcoin Project).

C. In 2009, a figure by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto published the paper

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System, which outlined how

crypot-currency could work (Bitcoin Project).

D.

Shortly after the publication of this paper, Satoshi released the code for

Bitcoin through a cryptography mailing list. Satoshi left the Bitcoin

project to others in 2010 (Bitcoin Project).

Transition:Now that you know some of the history of Bitcoins development, I will now

move onto a description of what Bitcoin is.

II. I will now tell you what Bitcoin is.

A. Gavin Andresen, principal of the BitCoin Virtual Currency Project: The

short, geeky answer is BitCoin is the world's first distributed electronic

currency. If you are not a geek, some of those words probably don't make

any sense to you. The non-geeky short answer is that it is a new kind of

money that we are using on the Internet (Andresen).


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i. Basically, Bitcoin is an electronic form of currency.

B. Bitcoin utilizes P2P (Peer-to-peer) technology, and is open-source and

decentralized.

i. Peer-to-peer technology: Bitcoin operates through a peer-to-peer

system

ii. Open-source: the source code is available to everyone to copy,

edit, etc. As Gavin Andresen stated in his 2009 EconTalk

interview, Open source means that the source code, the computer

programming language code, is available for anybody to look at; in

this case it's available for anybody to take and modify, do whatever

you like with it. Completely free and open (Andresen).

iii. Decentralized: No central organization manages or controls the

movement of Bitcoins.

Transition: Now that you understand what Bitcoin is, you should know about two recent

developments concerning the new e-currency.

III.

I am now going to talk about some recent developments concerning Bitcoin.

A. The first major development concerning Bitcoin is the Mt. Gox crash

earlier this year in February.

i. According to the PBS Newshour segment Virtual Bitcoins worth

$425 million disappear, Mt. Gox, an online Bitcoin exchange, lost

850,000 Bitcoins, which were valued at $425 million USD.


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ii. Mark Karpeles, CEO of Mt. Gox, stated after the crash, There

was a weak area in the system, and, as a result, we lost Bitcoins. I

am deeply sorry that I have caused trouble to everyone (Virtual

Bitcoins worth $425 million disappear).

B. The second major development concerning Bitcoin is the IRS ruling that

took place earlier this year.

i. Earlier this year in March, the Internal Revenue Service ruled that

Bitcoin will be considered property rather than currency for all

legal and taxation purposes (Biggs).

ii. According to John Biggs Techcrunch article"IRS Rules Bitcoin Is

Property, Not Currency", The IRS has officially stated that bitcoin

is a propertysimilar to any other valuable commodityrather

than a currency. What does this mean? Not much. In short, if you

pay someone in bitcoinin the same way you could pay them in

goldthe wages are taxed accordingly. It is also not considered

legal tender but a capital asset (Biggs).

iii. In its ruling, the IRS wrote that In some environments, virtual

currency operates like real currency but it does not have legal

tender status in any jurisdiction, while for U.S. tax purposes, A

payment made using virtual currency is subject to information

reporting to the same extent as any other payment made in

property(United States of America).


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Transition to Conclusion: I will now move onto my final comments.

Conclusion

I. Restate Thesis: Today you have been informed about Bitcoin, an electronic

currency.

II. Review Main Points: I covered the history of Bitcoin, what Bitcoin is, and two

recent developments.

III. Closing Remarks: Perhaps my talk today has sparked an interest for some of

you. Thank you for listening.

Bibliography

AmherstMedia. Making Money- Gavin Andresen @ Ignite Amherst. Video recording,

YouTube. YouTube, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 4 Nov. 2014.

Andresen, Gavin. "Andresen on BitCoin and Virtual Currency." Interview by Russ

Roberts. Audio blog post.Library of Economics and Liberty. Liberty Fund, 4 Apr.

2011. Web. 3 Nov. 2014.

Biggs, John. "IRS Rules Bitcoin Is Property, Not Currency." Web log post. Techcrunch.

AOL Inc., 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Nov. 2014.

Bitcoin Project. "Frequently Asked Questions."FAQ. Bitcoin Foundation, n.d. Web. 05

Nov. 2014.

Virtual Bitcoins worth $425 million disappear. PBS Newshour. PBS. KPBS, San

Diego. 28 Feb. 2014. Television. Transcript.


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United States of America. International Revenue Service. IRS Virtual Currency

Guidance : Virtual Currency Is Treated as Property for U.S. Federal Tax

Purposes; General Rules for Property Transactions Apply. By International

Revenue Service. International Revenue Service, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 5 Nov.

2014.

bitcoin speech outline

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