IT SEEMED like a good idea. Why not mark our special report on digital money by putting the price in Bitcoin on the magazine鈥檚 cover? Alas, it was not to be.
Our money people weren鈥檛 keen to add a currency whose value might plummet (or rocket) at any time. We weren鈥檛 sure how we鈥檇 process payments. And we couldn鈥檛 find a stockist who would accept Bitcoin anyway.
That pretty much sums up where Bitcoin is today. Mainstream interest is growing fast, but its value remains volatile and its infrastructure embryonic (see 鈥�Problems already cloud the currency鈥檚 future鈥�). As our reporter found during a Bitcoin-funded road trip, you can鈥檛 yet use it to buy much in the 鈥渞eal鈥� world without tedious workarounds 鈥� scarcely the seamless payment system you might expect, and no match for cash or cards (see 鈥�Can you live on virtual money for a day?鈥�).
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Bitcoin itself may never rise to this challenge. Its foundations, so daringly different to those of traditional currencies, may be too weak to support meaningful financial activity. It may end up co-opted by Silicon Valley and Wall Street, as previous financial innovations have been, or even by a desperate nation (see 鈥�Three scenarios forecast the future of money鈥�).
But Bitcoin is not the only game in town. It has inspired others to build systems that will enable a much wider range of applications. Some, such as insurance, will be familiar; others, such as cloud storage or self-driving cars, are barely related to what we think of as finance at all (see 鈥�How its core technology will change the world鈥�).
The common denominator of all these applications 鈥� and the real value of the Bitcoin experiment 鈥� is a digital basis for trust: the 鈥渂lock chain鈥�, which allows transactions to be recorded without reams of red tape. Get rid of the red tape, and you could also get rid of those who make money by dealing with it.
So by opening up the Bitcoin protocol to the world, 鈥淪atoshi Nakamoto鈥�, its mysterious inventor, may have democratised finance 鈥� much as open internet protocols have democratised communication. If so, it鈥檚 not just the billions of dollars invested in Bitcoin that are at stake, but the very nature of money itself.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just the billions of dollars invested in Bitcoin that are at stake, but the nature of money itself鈥�
One modest upshot: you may soon be able to buy your copy of New 杏吧原创 with any currency of your choice. Or, for that matter, with a currency of your own.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淣ot small change鈥�
