Wow, this was an extremely positive article!
Best bits:
Technology is reinventing finance. For the individual, there is a widening array of options for receiving, holding, transferring and spending the money that we earn; likewise, for governments, there are opportunities to reduce costs, simplify processes, and engage with citizens. In the developing world, value transfer via SMS is already replacing cash. With virtual currencies like BitCoin now operable without the need for a bank account, why would you open one? We need to ask whether the 5bn people coming online in the next five years will want to use our conventional financial tools and systems. We have hardly made a persuasive case for them in recent years.
Last week, the world’s most powerful nations grappled with the complexity of a global tax system. But almost unnoticed, the rise of digital currencies like BitCoin threatens to render obsolete even the modest progress made by the G8. BitCoin's distributed network structure makes it hard for any one country or group of countries to regulate its activities.
Unless the issues that BitCoin raises are addressed in a thoughtful and proactive manner by existing authorities, the disintermediating power of technology is likely to have a disruptive impact on currency systems and those that regulate and rely on them. And the effect could be as significant for governments as the rise of social media has been for individuals.
The authors were pretty well known in political circles, too, both in the US and GB. Great stuff indeed.
