WALL STREET JOURNAL: DIGITAL CURRENCIES LIKE BITCOIN WILL DISRUPT GLOBAL FINANCE

The recent drop in bitcoin price has given ammunition to bitcoin skeptics. But this weekend, readers of The Wall Street Journal got a long-term perspective on bitcoin with an essay titled, ‘The Revolutionary Power of Digital Currency.’ The essay sported a dazzling illustration showing of the headline bursting out from an unzipped leather wallet.
A side note advised readers the 2,472-word essay by Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna is adapted from a new book by St. Martin’s Press. The book is titled, ‘The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order.’
The essay notes that while bitcoin is only six years old, and critics are already calling it dead, such predictions miss an important point. The technology underlying bitcoin will become more influential as developers create newer, better versions.
Bitcoin critics are not without cause for concern, the authors state in the first paragraph. They cite the half-billion dollars’ worth of bitcoin lost from an online Tokyo exchange; the arrest of the vice chairman of a bitcoin trading company on drug-related charges; and a recent warning to investors by billionaire Warren Buffet.

This post was published at Crypto Coins News on January 26, 2015.