Jim Angel, professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, is skeptical of Bitcoin's long-term viability. "Governments don't like competition in the currency business and if it gets too big they will clamp down," he said.
"Also, you are trusting algorithms to protect the system, and we all know that technology breaks or gets hacked.
"We are just one scandal away from Bitcoin collapsing entirely."
deepceleron, creator of we.lovebitco.in and anonymous self-appointed Minister of Bitcoin Bullshit, is skeptical of the Financial Times' expert quotes:
Jim Angel sounds like another uninformed loudmouth shooting off his lie-hole, because the technology Bitcoin uses will forever be beyond his comprehension. Actually, looking at the Georgetown
press page where they celebrate staff press appearances, they are more likely a pay per quote factory akin to
Forrester Research, who you can call when you need something said by someone else.
Who's government? Bitcoin is global, can be anonymous, and doesn't need the permission of a government. Services like PayPal can pay government protection money and play ball, allowing them to
create lies to get government thugs to protect them against DDOS. Bitcoin services can do the same.
What scandal? Most of the Bitcoin services have had some hack, but keep on going (this forum, mtgox, etc). Wallet, exchange, and investment sites run off with people's bitcoins. The currency doesn't break though, and people are paying $130 to get some.
The price may be a bubble, or it may the last time bitcoins are this cheap. Bitcoin needs no company producing dividends, needs no correlation to profits, assets or GDPs, and is like nothing seen before by these economists, not even previous currencies. Tulips have a potentially unlimited supply and cannot be subdivided into 100,000,000 parts and sent around the world instantly.
The headline assertion that bitcoin
is a bubble is irresponsible.