Is Bitcoin's Lure the Cure for Currency Uncertainty?

The recently invented currency known as Bitcoin has drawn more than just raised eyebrows. A growing number of enterprises and individuals are accepting Bitcoin for payment transactions. From what one can understand with some degree of reliability, Bitcoin fans tend to have a global business perspective. There's also, at least in the Anglo-Saxon nations, a strain of libertarian perspective animating the Bitcoin crowd. Governmental boundaries and regulation, which Bitcoin is specifically intended to avoid, offend both libertarians and globalists, adding to the currency's attractiveness.

Institutions such as large financial services firms and governmental entities are lukewarm to Bitcoin's flash. They worry about money laundering, whether the source is creepy oligarchs or sinister underworld elements. Another concern is Bitcoin's ability to dodge institutional insider skims such as currency value differentials. That fret is not trivial. A November 2013 Venture Beat story noted an automobile sale involving Bitcoin in Australia. In the article, the manufacturer's CEO, David Brim, pointedly noted the savings the Bitcoin transaction generated:

using Bitcoin reduces costs, since the company uses it to pay overseas suppliers without incurring currency trade and transaction costs. All purchases, however, still do include Australia's goods and services tax.

Brim also touted Bitcoin's promise of "disruption" to the current payment systems. If there were ever a word that is quickly pushed front and center to promote "progress" as an irresistible, inarguable good, "disruption" comes to the head of the line. That "disruption" might just suck rarely enters this sort of dialogue.

The calculation of Bitcoin value, and its secure housing, depends upon a trustworthy electronic network. Bitcoin advocates seem to take a smug view of the digital world and the arrogant assurances of tech's high priests. Anyone who has lost "content," such as book readers did in flaps involving Amazon's removal of George Orwell works, should harbor mistrust of such breezy sentiments. Those who have tasted credit card transaction "issues" have had up-close-and-personal experience with "Sorry, we can't complete your purchase, unless you have cash." I'm not suggesting the solution to Bitcoin's proposition is to stash money in a mattress or hoard gold. And it's fair, in light of the 2008 financial crash, to doubt the staying power and integrity of major financial firms. The question comes down to trust. If your answer is God, more power to you. However, as the late Jean Shepherd said, "In God we trust, all others pay cash" seems spot on. Whose cash? Now there's the conundrum.