Quote

At its core, bitcoin is a smart currency designed by very forward-thinking engineers. It eliminates the need for banks, gets rid of credit card fees, currency exchange fees, money transfer fees, and reduces the need for lawyers in transitions... all good things.

The Internet's proven to be a pretty big deal for global society, and Bitcoin could basically be thought of as the Internet, applied to money.

BitCoin is actually an exploit against network complexity. Not financial networks, or computer networks, or social networks. Networks themselves.

In truth, the best Bitcoin can hope for is to be a second-rate version of gold, if that.

Bitcoin frees people from trying to operate in a modern market economy.

Bitcoin woke us all up to a new way to pay, and culturally, I think a much larger percentage of us have become accustomed to the idea that money no longer comes with the friction it once had.

There is no more reason to believe that Bitcoin will stand the test of time than that governments will protect the value of government-created money, although Bitcoin is newer, and we always look at babies with hope.

My view is that the bitcoin is in its very early days, and it is an artificial currency. But whether it is creating new money, whether it is sustainable, whether it would survive - I have many questions about it.

In 2008, Bitcoin was mysteriously introduced to the world in an obscure, technical paper written under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. By late 2013, the financial press was filled with reportage on Bitcoin and its dramatic price increase.

Virtual currency, where it's called a bitcoin vs. a U.S. dollar, that's going to be stopped. No government will ever support a virtual currency that goes around borders and doesn't have the same controls. It's not going to happen.