To me, this was a disguised thumbs-up for bitcoin from Colbert.
He kept Davidson off-guard the whole time by asking good questions.
This was a
complete thumbs-up from Colbert; if anything he was a little apprehensive because it goes too far.
First, he discloses his bias that 'I am heavily invested in something called Bitcoin'.
Dwarves = cypherpunk software tinkers
Mithril = cryptographic protocols which protect against an unlimited amount of violence (TrueCrypt, TOR, etc.)
Durin's Bane, Balroq = the completely free market or crypto-anarchy
He bashes fiat currency and the fractional reserve banking system; the Euro and GameStop.
He made complete fun of the volatility but played the one clip from a Bitcoin proponent that argued this was a long-term trend and not a fly by night fad. So did Colbert buy it early or at the height of the bubble?
Davidson played completely into Colbert's strategy for growing Bitcoin. How many of the 1.9m in Colbert's demographics are going to become Bitcoin users for Silk Road? And Colbert gets a use case of Bitcoin: 'Nobody buys drugs with a credit card man.' Then he lampoons NPR's relevance to the overall economy with 'If Bitcoin gets there (NPR) then we know Bitcoin has made it'.
What is money? Based on faith (subjective value theory).
He needed Davidson on to be the 'negative' side and he probably chose Davidson because he could easily manipulate him into answering the questions the way he wanted them answered.
So, overall, it looks like Colbert is a big Bitcoin proponent and laid out a very compelling case for it to his audience.
I totally agree. Overall it was positive bitcoin publicity
