Chapter 5 was a little bit difficult to understand. The title of the chapter is an oxymoron: "real virtuality." The author uses QQ coins as an example which are like bitcoins, which are an online virtual currency. If you have played computer games or video games, they will give you options to purchase merchandise in order to help you beat the game. This goes hand in hand with mercantilism but unlike in real life, the author describes it as "free market mercantilism at its best." But if you think about the QQ situation is a bit complicated. Essentially you are trading real money for fake online currency. The value of currency in real life comes from the government setting a value for the currency and its trade value. But with QQ coins, the user is essentially free from government control. I thought it was a pretty interesting read because it reminded of bitcoins.
John Bloom starts the chapter off by explaining to the reader that we normally associate things with what we are already familiar with. For example, in normal language we substitute the use of credit cards by saying we are using money which isn't true. The world doesn't really revolve the way we think it to revolve. Bloom then goes on to explain what QQ coins are, virtual coins for users in their messaging system. The QQ coin became relevant once other game sites began to accept the coins as well. The problem with the virtual currency was that it was difficult to regulate and people began to use it as regular money that couldn't be traced and could avoid being taxed. QQ coins served as a bridge between what is real and what is not. People used the coins in order to gain real money, but at the same time the coins were merely an "afterimage" of what real money is. Regardless of the fact that it is just a virtual currency, the coins needed to be taken care of by the Chinese government in order to protect their real currency. It is important to note that if virtual currencies are left unchecked it could lead to chaos and devaluation of real currencies.
I agree with your view that virtual money should also be taken care of by the government. Ultimately, there is a merging point between the world of reality and the world of virtuality. The government is the essential force to ensure that the merging is smooth rather than chaotic where they try to swallowing the other one up.
ReplyDeleteUsing QQ coins as a tool to circumvent some of the regulations that are applied to real money is a really interesting. It almost seems like people choosing which system to serve (the government or the gaming websites).
ReplyDeleteI like the QQ coin example. I've used QQ coin when I was in high school to play online games. The process is basically that you buy QQ coins to play the game, if you win you get extra, and if you lose you get nothing. It's kind of addictive and teenagers tend to play the games over and over again and buy lots and lots of QQ coins.
ReplyDeleteQQ coin is a really smart innovation, lot of my friend can make money by selling QQ coin. I'm thinking what if some hacker can code fake QQ coin. That will be a big problem
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