Will Bitcoin Break Up the Big Bank Monopoly Destroying Our Country? | Washington's Blog

Will Bitcoin Break Up the Big Bank Monopoly Destroying Our Country? #bitcoin

A lot of people are busy trying to figure out how to make banks better. There is anger about what has gone on and puzzlement about the apparent inability of anyone to start doing something about it. [W]e seem to be frozen in a technical discussion of bank separation, capital adequacy, product authorisation, remuneration and incentives, or taxation. All worthwhile subjects in their way, but guaranteed to keep the sans-culottes at home. So let’s ask another question. Why do we need banks – what are they for? *** Which brings us to Bitcoin . Launched a couple of years ago and still in its infancy, it calls itself a peer-to-peer virtual currency. This means that instead of a bank, the collective network of users maintains a complete encrypted record of bitcoin (“BTC”) transactions and how many BTC each user has. Payments involve a public-private key exchange so that only valid...

Full article: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/02/will-bitcoin-break...