Bitcoin: Its not just loopy tulip land, its worse

Bitcoin: Its not just loopy tulip land, its worse: Congratulations, libertarians, your clever little digital currency based on nothing but arithmetic, arrogance and faux-revolutionary Kool-Aid has been smeared in US Senate-love and slid all the way up to the US$1200 mark. Bitcoin is being taken seriously in serious quarters, it seems. Well done. So now its time to build some structure and regulation around it.

Cue the sound of a million crypto-currency fans screeching a thousand well-parrotted slogans that “explain” why every other monetary system will soon collapse and nations-states will crumble — and why anyone who disagrees is just an ignorant slave to outmoded economic thinking.

Actually, the “why” is never explained, its just asserted.Back in April I discussed how Bitcoin is more ideology than trustworthy currency, noting such fun facts as Bitcoins value seeming to track the number of people searching for it on Google, and that even boosters like Pirate Party founder Rickard Falkvinge consider it “still far from ready for prime time”.

The comments in reply were a fascinating jumble of ideas, admittedly not all of which were completely loopy. But youll get a much better idea of the effervescent assertions emanating from the Bitcoin wonderland by following the Twitter account @bitcoin_txt, which picks out the highlights.

These recent examples illustrate the image problems Bitcoin needs to overcome before ordinary non-geek folk can start taking it seriously.