Pirate Software, week 3: Bitcoin

I believe Bitcoin is the nest evolutionary step for money!

Which is a pretty bold statement, but let me explain. Bitcoin is encrypted currency in a peer-to-peer network. The code that runs all this is open source (with a few core developers) and the community around it is very very active. It is not backed by anything, such as gold, so its value is only backed by its usefulness, and the possibility of it becoming really big in the future.

The current price (2011-01-22) for 1 Bitcoin (BTC) is USD 0.39, which is about € 0.29 or SEK 2.57. The value goes up and down quite a bit, so don't buy Bitcoins for all your money, OK?

The compelling features of Bitcoin (compared to money 1.0) is:

1. You can be pretty much anonymous when you send money.
2. Transfers can't be stopped, so if you wish to send money to Steve in Rio, nobody can stop it, not even Steve.
3. Transfers are completely free, or almost free (I can't go into details here, unfortunately), so no bank or credit card company will take a slice.
4. Transactions are pretty fast (within a few minutes), at least compared to many bank transfers. Not as fast as handing over cash, but almost.

It is clear that Bitcoins in many ways are superior to money 1.0, and anonymous unstoppable transfers of money will not be popular with some governments, so we can expect a very hard reaction against Bitcoin in the future. That alone is perhaps reason enough to start using Bitcoins - who doesn't want to be a rebel?

So, how does all of this work? Well, it is all described on the Bitcoin website, where there are free downloads for Mac, Windows and Linux. Go there, download the program, start it up, and contact me by encrypted email to mats_s@henricson.se (you should know how to do it now, right (LÄNK)) and I'll send you a Bitcoin to get you started. I currently have about 140 Bitcoins. All I need from you is a Bitcoin address. Here is one of my addresses:

1J68uJvM1RL6ZU3iSWaHPrJyM1TTkxMcGj

All I need from you is such an address, which your Bitcoin program can generate for you. Then send the coin somewhere, such as to the EFF. Their address is:

1MCwBbhNGp5hRm5rC1Aims2YFRe2SXPYKt

Just a few days ago there was an article on EFF's website called "Bitcoin - a step Toward Censorship-Resistant Digital Currency". It is a good read.

"Bitcoin is to Paypal as email is to fax."