Bitcoin Deaths 2011

20116 obituaries

The Rise And Fall Of Bitcoin

Beyond the most hardcore users, skepticism has only increased. Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the currency’s tendency to fluctuate has encouraged hoarding. Stefan Brands, a former ecash consultant and digital currency pioneer, calls bitcoin “clever” and is loath to bash it but believes it’s fundamentally structured like “a pyramid scheme” that rewards early adopters.

??? · Wired

The Bitcoin Is Dying. Whatever.

So Bitcoin, we’ll remember the good times, like the time that one guy who got heat stroke while mining Bitcoins. Or the time there was the great heist caper that shut down trading site Mt Gox for an entire day. The lulz were abundant. But frankly, it’s time for you to go. Farewell.

Adrian Covert, Author · Gizmodo Australia

Why Bitcoin Will Fail As A Currency

Although I think that Bitcoin is ingenious and fascinating in many ways, I don’t believe that it will succeed as a currency. The problem is that a Bitcoin is unlikely to ever be a good store of value (a primary function of any widely accepted currency) because the (eventually) fixed money supply will cause the purchasing power of a Bitcoin to be extremely volatile.

calcinv · The Calculating Investor

So, That's The End Of Bitcoin Then

Bitcoins aren’t secure, as both the recent theft and this password problem show. They’re not liquid, nor a store of value, as the price collapse shows and if they’re none of those things then they’ll not be a great medium of exchange either as who would want to accept them? . . . It’s difficult to see what the currency has going for it.

Tim Worstall, Economics Writer · Forbes

Why Bitcoin Will Fail As A Currency

Because, by design, there will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins in existence. And thanks to hoarding and attrition, we can be sure that it will eventually serve as nothing more than as a collector’s item. . . . I would like to call upon the Bitcoin community to stop referring to it as a digital currency. This is misleading and harmful.

Tav Siva, Distributed Systems Engineer · Tav's Blog

Why Bitcoin Will Fail

Like the gold standard, a successful bitcoin would send our economy back into the dark ages. . . . Even if it became popular, governments would squash it because of #1 and because they like being in power. . . . With bitcoin, a single failure of the cryptosystem could result in an utter collapse of the entire financial network.

Avery Pennarun, Google Fiber Engineer · Apenwarr