Got Them Bitcoin Blues

The Sunday Times supplement had a great article of yesterday - Desperately Seeking Satoshi - Focussed on the mystery of bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi the persona appeared on public blogs in 2009, posted the seminal bitcoin paper https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf (a masterly paper) then, having got the bitcoin community rolling, gradually faded from the blogosphere and finally disappeared  in 2001, saying he had "moved on" to other interests. The article was a very nice piece of work and after much ado pointed out David Chaum as the most likely identity for Nakamoto.

Another article in the main Sunday Times discussed the woes of bitcoin - with a headline suggesting the currency was "crumbling" after the MtGox meltdown. However, it did concede that bitcoin prices were actually holding fairly firm around the $500 mark - In fact I just checked BTC-E and it looks like there's an upward trend - currently trading at $574.

One thing that I haven't heard mentioned is that the whole idea behind bitcoin was the removal of a need for a "trusted broker" in transactions - bitcoin passes direct, person to person with no need for a middleman. The aim was to take banks etc. out of the game because they CAN'T BE TRUSTED. People were supposed to hold their own coins. The thing is, sites like MtGox and the others are exactly what bitcoin was supposed to do away with. What's worse they are totally unregulated. Who knows what went on at MtGox - the various stories make minimal sense to me. I have my theories. But the blockchain could know some interesting stuff about the whole story - and the neat thing is that that isn't going to disappear (ever)!

So in a way, the MtGox calamity is a reminder about what Bitcoin is really about. I believe it will rise again - with a reshaped ecosystem... far greater than before!