Another discussion about bitcoin, which is more about the technology: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8766.0 Original Article that forms the basis of that discussion: http://www.pds.ewi.tudelft.nl/~victor/bitcoin.html Bitcoin is a “peer-to-peer electronic cash system” that gained certain acceptance as of early 2011. I review the system, mostly based on its description in the original article and the project's wiki. To the best of my understanding, the sentiment about this particular system is mostly groundless. The key three features of the system, namely (1) peer-to-peer architecture, (2) anonymousness, and (3) cryptographic security are only met if their definitions are somewhat relaxed. The key point of Bitcoin is eliminating double spending without resorting to trusted third parties. An actual system, if only any popular, will have de-facto third parties, but it is unclear, how reliably double-spending is eliminated. One of the responses: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=8766.msg127005#msg127005 * No, Bitcoin is not perfectly democratic but it doesn't need to be. In fact, that would be detrimental because casual users are more vulnerable to being tricked into using a fraudulent client than expert miners. * No, Bitcoin is not perfectly anonymous but most users don't need perfect anonymity. The few ones that do can approach perfect anonymity arbitrarily at a relatively low cost. * No, Bitcoin is not perfectly secure but nothing in this world is. On top of its technical security, Bitcoin is also secured by the social aspect. Above all, Bitcoin is a social convention, not just a piece of software. * No, Bitcoin is not safe against every conceivable DoS attack but neither is the internet itself. Conclusion: Bitcoin is far from perfect but it still beats any money that was ever invented, by far.