When scandal engulfs traditional financial institutions like Citigroup, there are investigations and calls for greater oversight –– human oversight. Bitcoin, though, was born of mistrust of humans and their institutions. It rests on the belief that financial safety emerges from the integrity of the technology, a computer code that controls a payment system, rather than the trustworthiness of the humans who participate in it.
To save their nascent currency, Bitcoin’s backers may be forced to alter their philosophy and embrace the same messy humans — auditors, insurers and even regulators — that the currency’s most ardent supporters have long abhorred.
My knee-jerk reaction to a Farhad Manjoo byline is to run and hide –– he’s put too much frustrating contrarianism into the world — but this piece explores an interesting paradox in the future of Bitcoin. Read on.
While we’re chatting internet currencies that aren’t Warcraft gold or something, there’s going to be a Bitcoin symposium at Queen City Hub on Tuesday, March 11. Details over here. You can ask them whether the headline “Winklevoss twins use bitcoins to book space trip” is for real or was just generated by a randomized news engine.
