Bitcoin is an attempt to create an alternative system of money. The system works like this:
- The first users of Bitcoin software were able to reasonably easy have their computers generate bitcoin "money". So, the early adopters now have a large number of bitcoin credits.
- Ever since then, it has become harder and harder for new bitcoin users to get any bitcoin "money".
- Bitcoin advocates--perhaps people who got in early and were able to get a lot of bitcoin credits--are trying to give these credits real-world value.
The US government does not like these kinds of alternative money schemes very much. There was someone who tried to get people to use "liberty dollars" as a kind of alternative currency who recently got arrested. This is not the first time alternative currency brokers have been busted.
Yes, there are a lot of real-world issues with how the mismanagement of real money by banks have put us in the economic crisis we are in right now. America's income inequality--which has been getting worse for the last 30 or 40 years--is a real problem which needs a real solution. Cooking up an alternative currency is not the solution.
At the time I posted this blog, Bitcoins were worth about one dollar. Two years later, Bitcoins had a value of approximately $140 each. If I were not so cynical, and bought $1,000 in Bitcoins instead of posting this, I would have been $140,000 richer.
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