Matsuda Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 Paul Harrison, Chris Kantola, and Jesse Angle, scrounging for bitcoins outside a public library in Pensacola, Florida. Photo: Michael Spooneybarger/WIRED Jesse Angle is homeless, living on the streets of Pensacola, Florida. Sometimes he spends the night at a local church. Other nights, he sleeps behind a building in the heart of the city, underneath a carport that protects him from the rain. Each morning, he wakes up, grabs some food, and makes his way to Martin Luther King Plaza, a downtown park built where the trolley tracks used to run. He likes this park because his friends hang out there too, and it’s a good place to pick up some spending money. But he doesn’t panhandle. He uses the internet. The park offers free wireless access, and with his laptop, Angle watches YouTube videos in exchange for bitcoins, the world’s most popular digital currency.For every video he watches, Angle gets 0.00004 bitcoins, or about half a cent, thanks to a service, called BitcoinGet, that shamelessly drives artificial traffic to certain online clips. He can watch up to 12 videos a day, which gets him to about six cents.* And he can beef up this daily take with Bitcoin Tapper, a mobile app that doles out about 0.000133 bitcoins a day — a couple of pennies — if he just taps on a digital icon over and over again. Like the YouTube service, this app isn’t exactly the height of internet sophistication — it seeks to capture your attention so it can show you ads — but for Angle, it’s a good way to keep himself fed.Angle, 42, is on food stamps, but that never quite gets him through the month. The internet provides the extra money he needs to buy a meal each and every day. Since setting up a bitcoin wallet about three or four months ago, he has earned somewhere between four or five bitcoins — about $500 to $630 today — through YouTube videos, Bitcoin Tapper, and the occasional donation. And when he does odd jobs for people around Pensacola — here in the physical world — he still gets paid in bitcoin, just because it’s easier and safer. He doesn’t have to worry as much about getting robbed.‘Bitcoin beats the shit out of regular money. We’ve resonated so well with people because it’s direct action. There’s no chaff between donation and helping people.’— Jason KingMore on Wired page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beamslider Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 At least he is able to survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator Matt Posted September 20, 2013 Administrator Share Posted September 20, 2013 good they have a place where they can using internet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dMog Posted September 20, 2013 Share Posted September 20, 2013 how many drug dealers deal with bitcoins..inquiring minds need to know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calguyhunk Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Good on 'em for finding a way of making some money. Much better than begging, mugging, drug peddling, gun running or committing crimes for hire :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
STEEL Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Yep, Fish for a Man & he will allways be Hungry, But teach him to Fish & he will allways be Happy!!! B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nIGHT Posted September 22, 2013 Share Posted September 22, 2013 Yep, Fish for a Man & he will allways be Hungry, But teach him to Fish & he will allways be Happy!!! B)"Give a man a coins and he will beg for more coins. Teach him how to bitcoin and he will no longer begs forever. " :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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