Something about bitcoins.

Barbarbar

It hasn't really been mentioned yet, since everyone is busy watching if this experiment might make them rich or not. But there's something bad about bitcoins.

It's not a "free" currency, it is not taken out of blue air. It is mined, by computers,  using power. As such, if it became voluminuos enough to settle at it's actual value, it would be worth exactly enough to pay the electrical bill, in whichever country it is most beneficial to mine the coin. Zerosum in other words, as there is no other value in the coin.

Think about it, a guy on a forum bragged that the police had come by, because they saw his electrical bill, and thought he was growing weed. But no he was mining bitcoins ambitiously, and had computers running 24/7.

So we have, a currency that has no manual labour, no fabrics or physical materials of value. Each and every cent is based on burning fossil fuels.

That is right, in this day of global warming, we come up with a currency that is an electrical outlet straight to the coal plant, and is based solely on the burning of these fossil fuels.

Now it's in its infancy, but if it explodes you'll have server like halls dedicated to one thing, wasting energy.