1) It is a deliberate parody of gold.
2) It was created by the NSA as a way to comprehensively test the security of SHA-256 and future hash algorithms.
]]>1) Anyone claiming that BtC is anonymous is a fool, a liar, or both. All transactions are public for all time... and connecting a datasets like that to real names is the current favorite sport of a large section of the computer science research community. Anyone who thinks the large number of possible wallets protects them from identification is kidding themselves. I expect the first prosecutions for BtC-assisted tax invasion to come within the next couple of years, and I expect them to be prosecuted on the basis of the blockchain and bank records.
2) It is theoretically possible to launder BtC through other crypto-currencies. However, I don't think it's practicable at a scale large enough to represent a threat, for two reasons. First, none of the alternates are large enough, nor do they show any sign of growing large enough. Second, they are all based on the BtC protocol, public blockchain and all. See my first point.
3) BtC is a remarkably shitty medium of exchange and will remain so into the foreseeable future. Why on earth would any remotely sensible person take or make a loan in a currency whose value might change by 50% in 24 hours? How about a salary, or any other medium to long term obligation? Given such volatility, there's no way for a monetary economy in legal goods to develop around it, which means that speculation will continue to rule the market, which means it will remain extraordinarily volatile.
4) As noted elsewhere, all money is collective consensual hallucination. It's money because we agree it is, and further agree to denominate our material obligations in it. All gold and silver are to money is a Neolithic anti-counterfeiting hack. Goldbugs fail because they miss the first bit and mistake the anti-counterfeiting hack for holy writ.
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