2013-04-15 CSM: Alternative currencies like bitcoin are a mirror of their users

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

I guess the Christian Science Monitor tried to do a religious analysis on Bitcoin.  Draw your own conclusion, the editorial reads rather rambling and ambiguous.

The e-currency bitcoin spiked and then fell last week, sowing doubts about alternative currencies, whether on the Internet or in local communities. Such experiments need a firm basis of trust.

In all their variations, alternative currencies depend on a view of humanity capable of seeking one’s own good in another’s. Currencies are really a measure of how well a community taps into its abundance of trust and confidence – in creating goods and services that are needed and in doing business with honesty.

http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2013/0415/Alternative-currencies-like-bitcoin-are-a-mirror-of-their-users

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[Mike Christ]

I'm assuming I have to be religious and/or a rambler to understand the contents of this article. 

[n8rwJeTt8TrrLKPa55eU]

I'm assuming I have to be religious and/or a rambler to understand the contents of this article.  

I'm an atheist myself but had a religious upbringing, I could not comprehend it. 

At this point, I only worship at the curch of Satoshi.  Nevertheless, we need to get priests, rabbis, and imams to endorse Bitcoin to their congregations, or at least not reject it.  Should be an easy sell:

Math is perfect and divine -> Bitcoin is the only money backed by math -> Btcoin is the money that God would use.

No deity would sully himself with tangible, physical units of account.

[teknomunk]

I'm assuming I have to be religious and/or a rambler to understand the contents of this article. 

I didn't really have difficulty understanding it, but it seemed rather weak and diluted.  They focused more on having trust in others and building local communities, using alternative currencies as a way to guide the discussion, than on money itself.

But money is a great mirror on what a community stands for.

In that vein, I would say that the Bitcoin community stands for equality.  Not that the "community" is a monolithic structure, far from it.  But it is why I think the recent survey of Bitcoin enthusiasts showed a large portion were libertarian.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I guess they might be thinking that the Vatican should begin issuing "Vatibucks" on the web ... to tap into that abundance of trust and confidence.


Edit: they could have at least put a "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto the lord what is the lord's" quote in there.

[StarfishPrime]

"Virtually Every Market Is Trading At Very Artificial Levels"
-Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian, 4/17/13

When a leading private bond holder (~2 trillion) makes that assessment, it would be negligent to not evaluate every other currency/store of wealth option including bitcoin.

The article seems to be more a commentary on the positive aspects of community-based currencies/commerce than any specific criticisms. This is a positive change from 6 mos. ago where virtually every bitcoin article focused on or at least mentioned silk road, money laundering, etc.

Recent estimates put silk road traffic at far below 1% of bitcoin transaction volume (probably less than the % of cash used in illicit trade?), so the tired, innaccurate arguments of 'bitcoin = bad people buying bad stuff' no longer apply any more than they do for cash.