The first comment on the page, by jzcjca00, beautifully obliterates all criticism from the video:
On October 13, 2013, at 9:27 AM, jzcjca00 wrote:
Why do people insist on expressing opinions on things they know nothing about?
Greenwald's first criticism of Bitcoin is that it does not have a transaction infrastructure. Total hogwash! The entire system is built around a transaction infrastructure that is faster, cheaper, and more flexible than regular banks. Half the world's population currently doesn't have bank accounts, and with Bitcoin, they don't need them. Bitcoin has fast, cheap, global banking for all mankind built into the currency itself!
Then he goes on to say that Bitcoin has "no natural advantages over gold or any other real measure of value." Seriously?
Money should be scarce, durable, portable, divisible, easy to recognize, easy to store, fungibile, hard to counterfeit, and in widespread use.
Scarce. Bitcoin blows fiat currencies away because it cannot be inflated by governments to cover reckless spending. It blows gold away because the mining rate is carefully controlled by its algorithm.
Durable. The blockchain is stored on millions of computers on the Internet. As long the Internet and at least one of these computers survives, and your password remains secure, your bitcoins are safe.
Portable. Much more portable than gold or fiat. You can send any amount of bitcoins (that you own), anywhere in the world, any time of day or night, at the speed of the Internet.
Divisible. To eight decimal places. Much more divisible than fiat or gold.
Easy to recognize, easy to store, fungibile, hard to counterfeit. These things are all built-in.
Widespread use. Not yet. Gold and fiat currencies have been around for thousands of years, while Bitcoin was invented only 4 years ago. Given that Bitcoin is vastly superior to fiat and gold in so many ways, I say it's only a matter of time until Bitcoin replaces them.
I think initially Bitcoin will grow in the area of international money transfers, particularly for poor people sending money home to their poor families in other countries, an area where banks are especially slow and greedy. Then perhaps in areas of the world with particularly unstable currencies. Then perhaps in industries with low profit margins, where credit card fees are killing them.
Today, investors have a unique opportunity to get in early on what is perhaps the biggest innovation of our age. Everyone should have at least a few bitcoins in their portfolio. The downside risk is a few hundred dollars. The upside potential is an orders of magnitude increase in value.
