Similar to when the TCP/IP, HTTP and SMTP protocols were still in their infancy; the Bitcoin protocol is currently in a similar evolutionary stage. Contrary to the early days of the Internet, when only a few people had a computer, nowadays everybody has a supercomputer in its pocket. It’s Moore’s Law all over again. Bitcoin is going to disrupt the economy and society with breathtaking speed.
For the first time in history technology makes it possible to transfer property rights (such as shares, certificates, digital money, etc.) fast, transparent and very secure. Moreover, these transactions can take place without the involvement of a trusted intermediary such as a government, notary, or bank. Companies and governments are no longer needed as the “middle man” in all kinds of financial agreements.
Not only does The Internet of Things give machines a digital identity, the bitcoin API’s (machine-machine interfaces) gives them an economic identity as well. Next to people and corporations, machines will become a new type of agent in the economy.
Gary Edwards on 09 Apr 13Good explanation of Bitcoin: what it is, how it works, and how to get started. excerpt: "Summary: So you want to buy and sell Bitcoins, but how is it done? In the second part of this two-part series, I'll show you how to transfer money from your bank to a Bitcoin exchange, how to use your wallet, and how to buy real things." In this two part series I'm looking at the practicalities of buying and selling Bitcoins. In Part 1, I looked at the theory of Bitcoins In Part 2 (this part), I'll take you through how I bought and sold them. As I mentioned in Part 1, "mining" is no longer a practical way to get into Bitcoins because of the requirement for specialised hardware and because it's very difficult for small scale operations to get any money to drop out in that way. The easiest way to get started is to send some "proper" money to a Bitcoin exchange. There are a few of these, the most famous being Mt. Gox. I used Bitstamp -- my method of selection being "random". I went to Bitcoin Charts to find a list of exchanges, and went through a few until I found one that made me feel in some way vaguely confident. You can't get started on this journey with a credit card -- you need something more like hard cash. I had to phone my bank to incept a wire transfer to Bitstamp's bank. This happened to be a bank located in Slovenia. The problem with credit cards is that they can be clawed back on the lightest suspicion of fraud. Everyone involved wants Bitcoin to feel and act like cash -- if you have Bitcoins, the premise is that they are definitely yours. (Plus, if you could use credit cards, the whole system would be absolutely slapped to pieces by credit card fraud.)
