Catching the wave of the future with CryptOasis

Father and son Ron and Jason McKee are hoping to clear up some of the questions surrounding crypto currencies and why Chestermerians need to know about this growing online phenomenon.
“We want to make an easy access point for people,”
To accomplish this the duo have been hosting a lecture on the topic Wednesday evenings at 6 p.m. at the Chestermere Public Library.
Playing on the Chestermere’s slogan of Alberta’s Oasis they have named the speaking series CryptOasis.
Each session starts out with the participants introducing themselves and letting both Jason and Ron know what they already know about block chain and crypto currencies and what they are looking to learn from the session.
“We don’t do the same talk every week,” said Jason, “we do a presentation that builds on what everyone has introduced themselves as knowing.”
While digital and technological ideas can be confusing, Jason said that crypto currencies and the technology behind them is really an economic discussion.
“What we’re talking about is disintermediation, peer-to-peer empowerment,” he said, “it’s an economic empowerment topic.”
In its most basic explanation, the block chain systems that underpin crypto currencies such as Bitcoin, are very sophisticated pieces of software making up a digital ledger.
“What it is, is a distributed ledger,” said Jason.
“It’s a record keeping piece of software,” he said.
These ledgers are at the same time easily searchable and deeply encrypted to maximize privacy.
With any of these cryptocurrencies or other data using block chain, the data is distributed across a large number of different computers, decentralizing it and securing it.
The system also has redundancies built in so that if one location goes offline, its piece data doesn’t also go offline.
“Each shard will be stored at a minimum of 10 or 20 places,” said Jason.
The combination of the encryption and dispersion is part of why both Jason and Ron believe that cryptocurrencies are more than just the latest online fad.
The tech startups behind the different crypto currencies are involved in everything from helping governments be more efficient with their digital files to helping banks transfer money more efficiently and securely.
“It’s astonishing what development is happening,” said Ron.
“It’s becoming mainstream,” he said, “It’s going to affect your future whether you know about it or not.”
It’s for this reason that they started hosting the CryptOasis information sessions to help educate people on the opportunities offered by block chain systems.
So far, the session have been going well considering that that have done limited advertising, they’ve had an average of about 7 people coming out each time.
For more information and to learn about safe ways to become involved with cryptocurrencies Jason recommends going to www.coinmarketcap.com.
“You can follow their links to websites of various projects,” he said.
“The reason I would use that as a starting point is because they’ve authenticated the correct websites to go to,” said Jason.