> I can choose whichever Government / Central bank fits me the best.
Bitcoin actually provides a new choice: government or no-government. People that want government/cb currency are free to choose it. People that want no-government money can choose Bitcoin.
I'm guessing Clay is in his 20's? If so, I'm approaching 52 years old and I loved this book equally as much in 1966 or thereabouts. If you're reading this, you made my day by reminding me of it.
> "Coding democratized how we can solve our own problems, regardless of age."
Well said. I'd add that very few old men are innovators, especially when it comes to CS or the like.
What I'm glad to see is more folks in this generation learning how to create their own channels, sell what they make and not depend on larger entities for their survival.
> If the company you store your wallet with is hacked you lose everything, if your laptop is stolen or your dropbox account is hacked... it's as safe as keeping cash in your apartment. If your bank fucks up your money is (almost always) insured.
What unthinking person leaves his bitcoins with a third party or on a computer? Would you leave your RL wallet with a stranger? Would you leave something easily stolen in public?
Store bitcoins in a paper wallet until you need to use them. They'll never get lost or stolen unless one is just as careless with the paper as they might be with their live keys.
The Euro is an experimental currency. Don't invest time or money in it that you can't afford to lose. Hackers can break into your account and steal your Euros in the middle of the night if you don't secure your wallet so never store your Euros with a third party.
There must be some shifting in the geekforce. I just switched back to Firefox a couple of weeks ago on OSX 10.7. Flawless, which is more than I can say for Chrome or Safari.
> If it was a good store of value you would print out your private key and put it in a safety deposit box
I have quite a number of btc stored in cold wallets.
My point is that because of Bitcoin, I actually have fluid wealth to move around and store, be it with metals or cryptocurrency. I didn't have that freedom with US cash, an instrument whose value is rapidly decreasing and has been for a long time.
> No one is accepting Bitcoin as payment and then holding on to them in order to buy something else or pay their workers.
Brewster Kahle at archive.org gives his employees the option to be paid in bitcoin received by the site.
> As a long term (or medium-term anyway) store of value, Bitcoin is really quite useless for the time being.
That's quite incorrect. Bitcoin has proven to be an excellent tool for buying low, waiting for a price rise, trading some of the bitcoin for gold, selling some of the gold and buying more bitcoin with the proceeds.
It's a great tool if you're willing to learn how to use it.
> what makes me happy is that Google can even disclose any of this at all.
That's one way to look at it. Another way might be, "Influential data company prevented from disclosing what the government is doing on the company's network".
> Bitcoin is basically useless except for illicit transactions
I'd never spend my bitcoins on drugs or gambling. That's what the rapidly devaluing dollar is for. Recall that the US dollar is Narco Currency #1 on the planet.
Bitcoins are useful as leverage due to their rapidly expanding (and sometimes deflating) value. I bought my first bitcoins for ~$3 two years ago and held them, even through the first spike and afterwards. I bought more btc at $5-12 as they were floating along last year.
I recently traded some of my btc for hard assets, gold and silver. I then sold some of the gold to a friend and bought more bitcoins.
Useless? No, Bitcoin is a very useful tool. It's the email of money.
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