Bitcoin really is useful. Just not in the way you thinkhttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/23/bitcoin-really-useful-not-in-way-you-thinkWhen the banking system went into meltdown in 2008, an intriguing glimpse of an alternative future appeared. On 31 October, an unknown cryptographer who went by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto launched what he described as “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer to peer, with no trusted third party”. The name he assigned to this new currency was bitcoin.
Since then, the world has been divided into three camps: those who think that bitcoin must be a scam; those who think it’s one of the most interesting technological developments in decades; and (the vast majority) those who have no idea what the fuss is about.
I belong in the second camp, but I can see why others see it differently. Those of the scam persuasion, for example, see the absence of any central authority, the wild fluctuations in the value of bitcoins (they were worth more than $1,000 in November 2013, around $235 at the moment), the mysterious collapse of one of the big bitcoin exchanges, the hacking of some of the digital “wallets” in which people keep their bitcoins and so on. And if the sceptics had any doubts, the news that Rand Paul, the libertarian US politician now running for president, is willing to take campaign contributions in bitcoins tends to confirm their suspicions that it’s just a fantasy.
...
