How Bitcoin is Changing Everything

You buy it with real dollars and in order to use it, it must be exchanged for real dollars.

Bingo. You nailed the crux of the problem.

When someone brags about the "value" of Bitcoin, do they tell you that one Bitcoin is now worth 600 Bitcoins? No, they tell you how many dollars it is worth. Now, I have no illusion about the US dollar. It is fiat currency, that has been in free fall since Nixon took us off the gold standard, and it is now in danger of losing its status as the World's Reserve currency. It is inflated and kept on life support by the Federal Reserve (double oxymoron there) moving decimal points on flat screens. But then again, the Stock Market is a crack pipe mirage as well.

"As long as we have electricity, I suppose we will become more and more computerized as time goes by. Given that realistic likelihood, digital currency will likely increase in use, convenience and eventually widespread acceptance."

Maybe so. Maybe not.

But gold will still be gold, even if the power plug gets pulled.

I expect negative comments from the less educated but to see you blow this new technology off as clouds in the wind is in a word to me, shocking.
You have spent your life adapting to the unexpected and preparing contingencies for multiple scenarios.

I hope you take another look at this technology as it is a completely new invention. Please read Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper.

One example of the power of this new technology is for the first time in the computer age you cannot duplicate a digital representation of a Bitcoin in the blockchain, No cut and paste. It cannot be reproduced or counterfeited. This has never been possible before and the implications are staggering.

I hope you will drill down a little deeper and find out what this is all about. Since its inception till this minute Bitcoins growth has been exponential on a global scale. This technology is here to stay.

Good luck to you and thanks for your time.

Sonic,

I'm of two minds on this.

While the Internet is available and somewhat free (as in freedom), the ability to use Bitcoin as a medium of free exchange for goods and services is amazing, and frees us to a degree from the tyranny of government-sponsored currencies. Unlike credit cards, the "merchant fees" (such as they are) of Bitcoin are incredibly low. The barrier to entry is almost nonexistent. And with so many vendors accepting Bitcoin, it is not true that Bitcoin has to be changed back into dollars or another government-controlled currency to be spent is simply not true. Nor is it true that you have to purchase Bitcoin with dollars; you can buy them with silver or gold.

The bad assumption about Bitcoin is the assumption that the world we live in will remain as it is today. That is normalcy bias. The people of Europe in 1927 assumed the world would be as it was ten years on. We know they were wrong.

Likewise, we could be dead wrong assuming the digital world will remain as stable as it is. (I believe that is part and parcel of Matt Bracken's short fiction, "Alas, Brave New Babylon".) It is possible, even probable, that the Internet as we know it will be sundered into multiple unconnected zones, through the actions of tyrannical governments, chief among them our own federal government. Will the block chain survive this sundering? It's possible (via backups stateside), though nobody knows.

I think people should try Bitcoin, to try and understand what crypto-currencies are all about.

In the final analysis, crypto-currencies are here to stay. Heck, I'd trust a cryptocurrency platform like the block chain (BitCoin's "backbone") to act as a ledger for recording votes. The computing power required to spoof or falsify such a ledger in the short time between voting and certification of the vote simply does not exist at this time.

Wonderful to have a contribution to the discussion that is thoughtful.
I suppose there is always the wild card of the unknown.
I think the thought that governments could zone the internet is a legitimate concern. I’m of the mind that private enterprise may launch independent satellites to counter such a move. There is going to be massive amounts of money involved and a guy like Richard Branson would have the wherewithal and vision to do it.

Security is a big concern and I know developers are working hard to come up with a viable solution. As you say, the integrity of the blockchain is assured but it is at the user end and central points of failure such as exchanges where windows of opportunity present themselves for hackers ( gov’t & black hat).

Cryptocurrencies are here to stay and nation states are getting involved. Iceland for instance has issued Auroracoin. It will be a pre mine of 50% which will go to the citizens of Iceland. I think the sky is the limit as this is the most rapid adoption of a technology in human history.

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