Bug Coin

By Mark Nuyens
5 min. read🚀 Entrepreneurship
TL;DR

After the rejection of my idea for thesis on developing a virtual coin, I learned that sometimes it's the new ideas that are worth exploring, especially when you're still in college.

In 2012, being a 22-year-old intern at a web development company called Studio Stomp, I was just months away from starting my thesis on a project from the same company. However, as the project came closer, I realized that I had an idea of my own I wanted to pursue. I wanted to create a system that would allow technical people and developers to post challenges and questions, and award credits to those who solved them. I called this system Bugcoin.

Bugcoin was designed to be a closed network where anyone could post technical questions and challenges, and anyone else could solve them. The solution would be rewarded with credits, which could be spent on posting new challenges. The idea was to create a system where people could essentially pick the work they enjoyed and outsource the rest. I believed that this system would introduce a new level of motivation, as people would be able to collect credits and gain recognition.

I presented my idea to my teachers at school, but they didn't see its potential. They said that it didn't solve any specific problem, and therefore, it was basically irrelevant. I was disappointed, but I didn't give up on my creative ambitions. I kept thinking about how people often don't know what they want until they have it in their hands. I believed that my idea had the potential to revolutionize the way people work and interact with each other.

A few years later, I learned about Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency. As I delved deeper into its concept, I realized that it shared some similarities with Bugcoin. Both systems were designed to create an economy based on solving challenges. I wondered how my teachers would have responded if I had told them that I was pursuing the goal of Bitcoin instead. They would probably have said that it didn't solve any particular problem, since nobody was asking for digital currency at the time.

The comparison between Bugcoin and Bitcoin suggests that we shouldn't allow our own hesitations to dictate the potential of our ideas. We shouldn't rely on our fears to create our future. Instead, we should dream big, try, and fail, and then improve. Only through such a process of evolution, we will learn what works and what doesn't. And that's worth more than being able to justify a particular idea based on the ideas of the past.

In conclusion, my rejected idea, Bugcoin, may not have been the next big thing, but it taught me a valuable lesson. The power of imagination is what drives us forward, and we should never be afraid to pursue our dreams, no matter how crazy they may seem. The world needs more people who are willing to take risks and try new things. I think we should embrace our imaginations and see where they take us. Who knows, maybe one day, our ideas will change the world.