We now live in a world where individuals can do things that were once impossible without the blessing of the state. The idea of printing a gun and selling it for an untraceable digital currency is no longer the stuff of science fiction. Much less clear is what, if anything, could or should be done about it.

"Healthcare could benefit.  Education could benefit.  Financial [services] could benefit, could you imagine for example; if facebook decided to embrace bitcoin? You know, and launched a bitcoin wallet for a billion and a half people, two billion people? What that does to the financial services industry?"

And the most amazing thing: that both of the above happened and the price is still not skyrocketing.  Bitcoin rises from $80 to $250 for no apparent reason, but when Paypal and Western Union start talking about adopting Bitcoin, world-famous VCs rave about it, Bitcoin is featured on China's most popular finance show, and most important of all -- we're clearly on the verge of going mainstream! -- the price does...almost nothing.

Yet Ripple is going gangbusters.  Go figure.

Im a member and i think theres way more than 300 of us

The controversy raises the question of whether America’s leading financial regulator, the Securities and Exchanges Commission, will attempt to control the spread and use of Bitcoin.

“We are declining comment,” said an SEC spokesman by email

According to Dan Nathan, a securities lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, the agency can oversee trades of financial instruments like stocks and bonds but, for the most part, not currencies.

Nathan said the SEC could exert indirect control through imposing capital requirements on trading houses that hold Bitcoin, but any direct trading regulation would likely be restricted to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)

Commercial banks may create digital currencies to rival Bitcoin, the virtual money whose U.S. dollar value collapsed by 46 percent in 24 hours last month, the head of New Zealand’s banking lobby said today.

“If it’s not Bitcoin it might be some other type of digital currency that could come into play,” Hope said. The cap on Bitcoin issuance, which limits supply to about 21 million units, “doesn’t mean that some other player couldn’t come into the market, and, you know, that might be a bank.”

Here’s more evidence Bitcoin isn’t going anywhere.
We’ve found a guy who’s putting his Trump Soho condo up for sale.
And he will only take payment in Bitcoin.
Later today, he will advertise the property exclusively on BitPremier, the first-ever online Bitcoin exchange exclusively for luxury goods. The site launches today.

Of course, with Silk Road being one of the main drivers of liquidity in Bitcoins, and one of the main places people spend them, any hit on Silk Road is a hit on Bitcoin, which only makes the cycle spin faster.
Whether these outages mean the end of Silk Road, or are just a huge bump in the road, is anyone's guess, but it's certainly a blow to the website. We'll just have to wait and see what pans out of the next few days.

My heart was pounding. My future was crumbling. I really, really didn't want to sell - I suspected the volatility was just a short-term thing, and that prices would soon begin to climb. On the other hand, I didn't want to lose my shirt. I'd invested $1000 in bitcoin, and given the apparent fragility of every site handling my money, there seemed to be a real possibility that I could lose it all. I put in a sell order during one of the bitcoin upswings. A few minutes later, to my relief, my order went through - I'd sold all my coins for an average of $163 each.

Jay Best walked into the Thelonious Monkfish restaurant in Cambridge’s Central Square earlier this month with no intention of paying for his sushi rolls with cash or a credit card. Best planned to settle the tab with bitcoin, a virtual currency used around the world to buy everything from baklava to marijuana.

“If we’re the first restaurant in New England accepting bitcoin, it’s a no-brainer,” said Jamme Chantler, owner of Thelonious Monkfish. “There’s a big group of people willing to drive 50 miles just to use it at my restaurant.”