After bombarding a few months by e-mail requests, we finally helped and made a "Freaknomics Radio" podcast over Bitcoin. The episode is called "why people who do not hate Bitcoin love it. " The essence - think of Bitcoin, because only a digital currency is similar to the thinking about the Internet as just an email. Bitcoin's prospective is much bigger and more interesting than that.
Bitcoin is described once as "virtual gold" and all Ponzi scheme after a refuge for people to buy black market products. But what people encourage some people, such as the Silicon Valley veteran Marc Andréessen, is the likely Bitcoin, which will probably be subject to any number of transactions, well on the simple currency exchange.
Andreesesen remarkably co-grounded Netscape and is now on the board of companies like Facebook and eBay. He is not an unexpected observer in the Bitcoin debate: his investment capital company Andréessen Horowitz invested in two Bitcoin related companies, such as Coinbase, and Andréessen says that his company is planning much more to facilitate Bitcoin.
Why so much confidence? The reason, Andreessen tells our own Stephen Dubner, is because Bitcoin is the "solution to an elementary problem in Computer Science. " "One of the things missed on the Internet for 20 years is a kind of household concept of money "Andreesesen explain. "The ability to pay online online, the ability to download a piece of content, the ability to easily exchange a digital title or a digital key, or a digital contract that just missed because you do not have a device have to establish faith. And then Bitcoin typically holds the promise to be the first solution to establish faith through a trusted network. "
A student of the Stanford University Susan Atoey, who has a background in Computer Science, is also a great lawyer in the technology that supports Bitcoin. For Atey, Bitcoin's control must be done with its simplicity: "The beauty of a new currency, which is part of a virtual currency protocol, is that what I move from me to you, just an entry on safe, public ledger is . And this public ledger is supported by a set of computers that all talk to each other with a protocol. So I don't have to worry about any bank that gives me and then give it the same as to another bank deliver. Instead, if I make a deal about the virtual currency, it's just an access to the ledger. So I don't need a driver. "
There is, of course, flip side to the simplicity of a transaction that Bitcoin gives. New York Supervisor of Financial Services Benjamin Pysyy, who leads the accusation to control the digital currency in the United States, says DubNer says he is concerned about Bitcoin's freedom gives criminals: "It is very difficult to get $ 1 million in a loud to transport currency. Abroad. You can't just put it in a backpack and get it on a very simple plane. But it's very easy to do that now digitally uses Bitcoin. "
It is said that Pysky is motivated by the possibilities of technology such as Bitcoin, which can prevent all forms of transaction fees. It can be a bad news for local banks, credit card companies and other quota search managers. However, if a questionnair warns many other people: "Immediately there are thousands and thousands of New York residents who work every day to send money to their families in any country they are. And how. A. Now pay their fees for this Wire transactions every week at the end of the week. And that's a lot of money for people who can't afford it often. "