Digital Currency -- one of the most interesting ideas of the past few years -- is gaining momentum as anarchists and computer nerds of all kinds adopt the decentralized cryptocurrencies to keep their identities hidden and transactions quick with online transfers.
This will all make sense soon... Actually no, probably not.
Bitcoin, the most widely used digital currency, was created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym). Bitcoin garnered some attention
in 2011 after Gawker wrote an article about the use of the currency on Silk Road, a digital black market mostly for illicit drugs.
Bitcoin has had trouble shaking it's drug-addicted reputation, with analysts such as Dave Kaminsky of Mercator Advisory Group (
who spoke to me in regards to an article for PaymentsSource) saying the currency offers benefits only to consumers searching for oblivion -- drugs, gambling, fetishes.
I happen to be an advocate of seeking oblivion. There's something genuinely beautiful about the fringes of society that find ways to act on their vices or attempts at open-mindedness.
Bitcoin will be successful in these realms, but other features hold it back from emerging into the mainstream.
No. 1: Do you even know what I'm talking about? And if you're following me now, what if I started in on how the currency works -- exchanges, miners, algorithms?
Bitcoin, intangible -- companies have recently popped up to create actual gold bitcoins -- is confusing. The vast majority of consumers don't even understand the U.S. dollar in its entirety. And while one bitcoin is currently worth about 12 U.S. dollars, it isn't actually worth anything. The U.S. government, which is keeping an eye on the Bitcoin market, is not responsible for the currency. Until someone sues a Bitcoin community member and the lawsuit goes to court, the currency is worthless. And there in lies another problem. If bitcoins were stolen or a user didn't provide the goods promised, bitcoins anonymity means finding the user responsible would be difficult, and once you did, without worth, what would you demand back?
The only way for a bitcoin to hold worth is if the U.S. courts gave it worth. If courts ruled for the defendant (the user whose bitcoins were stolen), giving bitcoin a set price in dollars, it would be legitimizing the currency, which I'm not sure the U.S. will want to do. If they rule against the defendant, the courts allow bitcoin to keep functioning the way it currently without government control.
No.2: Again anonymity is a disadvantage here. While anarchists talk loudly at you in awkward places about the obtrusive government stealing your privacy, anonymity is highly overrated (for most of humanity). While journalists in war-torn countries where tyrannical governments commit mass murder and keep resources from their people may need a dose of ambiguity, most other individuals could care less about their privacy, as blatantly shown on Facebook everyday. Rage against your government good people of Facbook, tapping your emails, using a computer to read the 1's and 0's your words create, to make sure another fanatical Middle Eastern man using an idea comparable to unicorns -- I'm speaking on religion here -- doesn't fly a plane into tall buildings again and then post about the copious amounts of drugs you took before driving on the highway way above the speed limit last night. Now not all of you have the immense amount of idiots I have on my friends list, but I'm sure you know a few.
People don't care about anonymity unless they're doing something illegal (which is now "cool") or embarrassing (which also seems "cool" now). Think reality TV and naked mirror photographs with duckface. Actually it's becoming increasingly more advantageous to be less secretive. I want Target to stop sending me men's razors and baby bottles in the mail. I want them to send me skull-crushing boots and hipster jewelry, you know, stuff I'll actually use -- although I do not usually discriminate against razors made for the opposite sex. And in the future, many companies will have this ability. With mobile payments, data about my purchases will be tracked. So the next time I walk by Urban Outfitters, using location-based services, the company will send me a coupon: "We're overpriced. We know it. Hipsters, the ones that have tons of mommy's money but still dress like hobos, love it. We understand you're not one of thooose hipsters, so we're willing to offer you $50 off this printed t-shirt so you pay the reasonable price: $10."
And as I stare at my phone in disbelief I think,
Touché you fauxhemian pabstsmears.
