Bitcoin refuses to flip

Virtual currency stays strong despite bankruptcies, gyrating rates
By Craig Timberg, WP

Future generations of Bitcoin billionaires may someday look back on 2014 with knowing smiles. Here was a year when thefts spread, exchanges collapsed, rates gyrated like a teenager’s moods. And yet the buying of bitcoins showed no signs of abating.

The past week was particularly extreme. The apparent suicide of an American business executive in Singapore was investigated for possible ties to her Bitcoin investments. A California man fingered as the currency’s mysterious inventor reacted to his sudden fame by asking that journalists buy him lunch. After finishing his meal at a sushi restaurant, he went on to deny any role whatsoever in Bitcoin.

Perhaps the most surprising development was that the virtual currency, despite wild fluctuations in value, continued to weather the mayhem. As the humans involved in the adventure looked increasingly vulnerable, Bitcoin looked comparatively solid, trading nearly 10 percent higher Saturday than a week before. Each bitcoin is worth more than $600 in recent trading.

“Bitcoin works really well,” said Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins University cryptographer who is working to develop a different virtual currency. “All this craziness around Bitcoin isn’t around Bitcoin itself. It’s around the people.”

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Why Bitcoin Is Here To Stay

With the recent implosion of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox and the publication of a questionable story about the indentity of bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoin has stayed in the headlines these past few weeks. And while some commentators and skeptics have been quick to pronounce its demise at every turn, the value of the cryptocurrency has hovered between $600-700 a coin through it all.

Reason TV interviewed Mercatus Center policy analyst and bitcoin expert Jerry Brito in April 2013, and he predicted a long, lasting future for the technology.

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