Cryptocurrencies are theftproof

[grondilu]

If you really want to prevent anyone from stealing your bitcoins, you can.  You just encrypt and backup your wallet.dat file, and remove the orginal file.  And that's it.  Sure, you won't be able to use your bitcoins until you restore your wallet, but that's not the point.  It's the same as your gold : you can't use it as long as it is in your safe.  You can't have protection and useability in the same time.

You can't even check that you received a transaction.

You can't now, but you will.

Until then you can restart the program with a new, empty wallet.

[Babylon]

bitcoins are stealable.  The thief just has to steal your harddrive.

I can use an encrypted file system.

Or I can encrypt my wallet.dat file when I'm not using the bitcoin software.

Or I can have most of my bitcoins encrypted on a distant machine, and use only small change for my local machine.

And so on...

You can.  You can do similar things with gold, paper money, and so forth.  The fact that you can make it difficult to steal doesn't mean it is inherently any more theftproof than anything else.

[LZ]

TrueCrypt is not free software.
I definitely need to learn the free alternative, which is cryptsetup on GNU/linux, I guess.

If you do not use 64-bit Windows, you can try FreeOTFE.

[Gavin Andresen]

You can.  You can do similar things with gold, paper money, and so forth.  The fact that you can make it difficult to steal doesn't mean it is inherently any more theftproof than anything else.

It is pretty darn hard to make a billion dollars of gold (or paper money) virtually theft-proof, especially if you're worried that your government might decided it 'needs' some of it.

Assuming bitcoins are eventually worth billions of dollars, it will be easy to make a billion dollars of bitcoins virtually theft-proof.  Heck, you could walk around with a billion dollars worth of bitoins on an encrypted memory stick in your pocket.

With a backup in a safe deposit box in Switzerland.  That's MUCH better than gold or paper money.

I'm starting to think that bitcoin as a store-of-value might end up being more attractive than bitcoin as a medium-of-exchange.

[grondilu]

I'm starting to think that bitcoin as a store-of-value might end up being more attractive than bitcoin as a medium-of-exchange.

Well, that might be good enough.

Exchange and storage of value are both fondamental usage of money.  None of them is more important than the other.

Currently used forms of money are better in exchange than in storage.  Bitcoins are good in both.

Now, I guess some people don't like the idea of seeing people saving money.  Nowadays, saving money is considered to be useless, and bad for economy.  People prefer consumption.  I really think this is a biased point of view.

Indeed bitcoins might be a good way for people to save money.  But this is a good thing, for it allows value to be available in future, in case it becomes more useful than in the present.  There's nothing wrong with that.