The world of Bitcoin is today one of the most promising, confusing, erratic sectors of the emergent world economy. So it will be for years to come because Bitcoin is in its infancy. Currently, it operates as digital payment system. Its efficiency far surpasses any other method of sending and receiving money. Its operation makes PayPal seem old fashioned and clumsy.
But its potential is actually far greater. It seeks to be a competitor to all existing government currencies. Indeed, it could eventually replace them. In time, Bitcoin and other “crypto-currencies” could reinvent the monetary and financial world from the ground up — on the basis of human choice rather than government imposition. But for now, the primary users and enthusiasts of this nascent digital currency belong to the young generation raised in a world swimming in computer code.
How can we know it has a future?
Consider the modern trajectory of digital innovation. In the last 20 years, letters have become email, television has become YouTube, and telephones have left the wall socket and become pocket video phones. This is the digital revolution, and it has been accomplished by the free market, not by government. It was not a “plan”; it is something that came about through trial and error through the commercial marketplace.
