In questo interessantissimo articolo, Hugo Rifkind ci spiega come i Bit Coin (o evoluzioni successive) possano realmente cambiare le carte in tavola.
alcuni estratti:
"l'ultima volta che ho scritto (un paio di settimane fa) ho menzionato velocemente i Bit Coin, una moneta emergente via internet che non ho capito bene ma con la quale ho anche guadagnato qualche soldo. Mi sono informato molto meglio e adesso la cosa sta esplodendo, anche grazie all'Ue che cazzeggia con i soldi veri dei cittadini.
Per prima cosa dovete sapere che i BitCoin sono una moneta criptata peer to peer. Non smettete di leggere subito. Ci sono altre cose riguardo a questa moneta molto più interessanti. Per esempio potete comperarci delle droghe, dico sul serio, secondo una studio, silk road, il sito "buy drgus with bitcoin" ha superato il fatturato mensile di 1 milione di sterline. Un'altro punto interessante è che il suo valore sta schizzando alle stelle. Un mese fa (non per comperare eroina...) ho acquistato 100£ di Bitcoin. Due settimne fa li ho venduti a 157£ e oggi il loro valore è 213£ ...
In realtà queste cose non sono le più interessanti, il vero punto forte è la storia della moneta criptata peer to peer. Questo significa che è diversa da tutte le altre valute che abbiamo mai utilizzato. Non ha una banca centrale. Non ha un responsabile. Non può essere riprodotta con una stampante alimentando schemi Ponzi. Semplicemente esiste. Non si può possedere perchè è un codice matematico, e non si può fingere e ripetere un codice matematico.Il fatto che sia peer to peer significa che è dappertutto e non si può spegnere, allo stesso modo di internet.
Le valute di oggi si basano sulla fiducia, fiducia che quella carta stampata abbia un valore, fiducia nella banca centrale che la stampa e nel governo che la rappresenta.I Bitcoin rimuovono la "fiducia" dall'equazione. Il fatto (certezza) che le banche centrali e i governi si mettano d'accordo per fregarti.
Un giorno attraverso i Bitcoin o qualche altra variante decentralizzata sarà possibile strappare le banche via dai banchieri e i soldi dagli stati.
Dietro questa moneta esiste un nuovo concetto politico filosofico, restituisce agli individui il potere dei governi, la possibilità di avere segreti che il governo non pùò sapere, ma a quel punto a cosa ci servirà uno stato ?"
link: spectator
leggi anche: la Bce contro i Bit Coin,i Bit Coin e la regolamentazione,i Bit Coin volano, una bambina di 12 anni ci spiega la frode del sistema bancario
qui sotto l'articolo originale
Last time I was here (two weeks ago; how’ve you been?) I briefly mentioned Bitcoin, an emerging internet currency I didn’t understand at all but via which I had nonetheless made a bit of money (£57). Since then, I’ve been reading up and the whole thing has gone supernova, largely thanks to the extent that the EU is dicking around with real money in Cyprus. God, but I’m just bang on trend, aren’t I? Good old me.
So. The first thing you need to know about Bitcoin is that it’s a peer-to-peer, digitised crypto-currency. No, please, don’t stop reading. Just hold that one in your mind while we talk about the second and third things you need to know about Bitcoin, which are far more exciting. For example, you can buy drugs with it! I mean, sure, you can buy plenty of other stuff, too, but I’m really not sure anybody actually does. According to one study, Silk Road, the main ‘buy drugs with Bitcoin’ website, has a monthly turnover of around a million quid. And thirdly — you’ll like this one, you capitalist Spectator types — its value is rocketing. A month ago — out of interest, rather than a desire for heroin, Mum — I bought £100 of Bitcoin. Two weeks ago, like, I said, it was worth £157. Today, it’s worth £213. Interested yet?
Actually, the second and third things aren’t as important as I made out. Mnyeh, drugs, you can buy them anywhere. And, sure, Bitcoin is bullish at the moment, but the value notoriously bounces all over the place (in 2010 somebody spent 10,000 of them on a pizza, a sum which would today make that pizza worth £465,368). So, no, far more interesting than the drugs and riches is the core idea, which is this peer-to-peer crypto business. For the non-tech-savvy among us, this basically means it’s not quite like any other currency we’ll have ever used. It doesn’t have a central bank. Nobody is in charge. A Bitcoin is a thing that simply exists, like gold.
Of course, it’s not entirely like gold because it also, well, doesn’t. You don’t hold a Bitcoin in your hand. It’s a string of code, wibbling around in cyberspace. In theory, though, this does not — should not; probably might not — reduce the whole concept to a tenuous, fragile, corruptible Ponzi scheme. Exactly why is hard to get your head around, but it’s basically maths. A Bitcoin is a number, and you can’t just make up another number, because — bear with me here — there’s a limited number of those numbers. New ones have to be discovered, and only can be discovered at a certain rate. This can be lucrative, but also expensive, because you need a vast computer to do the data crunching. And, being peer-to-peer, the software that makes this all happen is everywhere. You couldn’t switch it off, anymore than you could the internet itself.
At least, that’s the idea. The whole thrust behind Bitcoin is that it removes the need for trust in currency; trust in bankers, trust in governments, trust that the two won’t collude to do you over, like they did with everybody in Cyprus. Whereas actually, because most of us can’t begin to understand the maths that all these very clever programmer types insist is at the heart of the whole project, I suspect the true alternative is just outsourcing your trust to them. Still, there are apparently a lot of programmer types, and everything they do is being scrutinised by other programmer types, because none of them have anything better to do, because they don’t have girlfriends. So I’m not sure that’s necessarily unwise. You might call it the morality of crowds. I think it’s the future.
‘Shall I turn you in your grave now, sir?’
Bitcoin is endlessly fascinating, in a conspiratorial sort of way. It was invented by somebody who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto (which was almost certainly a fake name) and then disappeared. Most likely he was a group of people, most of whom have probably profited quite nicely. But at heart, this was always a political project, rather than an economic one. Because the truly fascinating aspect of Bitcoin is not the thing itself (which may well get hacked one day, or otherwise collapse and fall apart) but the concept behind it.
Soon, whether via Bitcoin or whatever comes next, it will be possible to strip banking away from bankers, and money away from governments. Anecdotally, many suggest that the recent surges in Bitcoin value have had a lot to do with the seizing of bank accounts in Cyprus, with people in other wobbly eurozone banking systems (chiefly Spain) looking for a cheap and easy way to send their money somewhere else. Whether or not this is quite true (it could just be the result of hype, bollocks and credulous fools like me), Bitcoin is certainly a cheap and easy way to move money around the globe. And sure, when you buy them or sell them, traditional banking and taxation structures can get their claws into you. But what if you didn’t have to?
There’s a whole emerging political philosophy here, similar to the crypto-anarchism of the likes of Julian Assange. It’s about individuals having the power of governments; having their own secrets (the crypto part) that governments can’t crack. It’s appealing for any hardcore libertarian, but it’s going to have its costs. When democracy stops being about the group and becomes about the individual, and when you are literally empowered to pay and get paid without anybody knowing but you, what happens to the state that needs your taxes to survive?
Buggered if I know, but it’s probably bad. Still, at least I’m £113 up. Heroin all round.