bitcoin

Showing 5 posts tagged bitcoin

Let's Cut Through the Bitcoin Hype

Dan Kaminsky:

The internet’s proven to be a pretty big deal for global society, and Bitcoin could basically be thought of as the Internet, applied to Money.

There’s an old comment that the internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. Sure, we’ve routed money over the internet for a while now, but those flows have always been managed, moderated, regulated by some vestige of authority.

Bitcoin’s about as friendly to this sort of regulation as the rest of the internet is — not very. To put it another way: Bitcoin’s a dollar bill, with a teleporter built in. We can just poke in a few coordinates and poof, off it goes, with the ease of posting to some forum somewhere. That’s somewhat new.

Great read.

Yes, Another Bitcoin Link

The Economist:

For Bitcoin itself, the biggest risk is not regulation but competition. Like any currency its value is dependent on the number of users. Being the first to build a network can be an advantage. But networks can also be supplanted as users suddenly switch to an even better competitor. As markets like eBay and Airbnb grow, for example, their user fees start to become a necessary payment, a bit like a tax. If those charges could be paid in a new form of digital money, the demand for that cash would be much more stable. Bitcoin might end up like MySpace, the now moribund precursor to Facebook.

This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. Bitcoin is fascinating, but it also seems like a huge pain-in-the-ass that will have a hard time ever getting mainstream adoption. It’s a proof-of-concept. Next, someone needs to nail the concept. 

Bitcoin May Be the Global Economy's Last Safe Haven

Paul Ford for Businessweek:

Maybe Bitcoin’s devotees are right, and it’s the currency of the future. Or perhaps it’s a ridiculous joke—a speculative, hilarious enterprise taken to its most insane conclusion. Given that the founder is nowhere to be found, it feels like a hoax, a parody of the global economy. That the technology used to implement it has, so far, shown itself to be impeccable and completely functional, and that it’s actually being exchanged, just makes it a better joke. The truth is, it doesn’t much matter if it’s a joke or not. It works.

Fascinating.

See also: Chris Dixon’s brief thoughts on the matter.