The world is finally paying close attention to Bitcoin, but people are more focused on its creator than the power behind the revolutionary digital currency.
They shouldn't be. Whether or not Dorian Satoshi Nakamoto, a 64-year-old retired engineer living quietly in California, is the father of Bitcoin is not really the point.
Bitcoin matters because it has governments and major banks scared stiff. It presents a currency that cuts them out of the picture.
China restricted banks from using Bitcoin late last year. In February, Russia's top prosecutor declared that Bitcoin and all anonymous payment systems are illegal.
For now, the United States is letting the experiment move forward. But New York state's top financial regulator has already detailed plans toregulate bitcoins sometime this year.
Banks see the writing on the wall too. In a quiet move last year, JPMorgan Chase (JPM,Fortune 500) filed a patent for a Bitcoin-like payment system -- digital wallets, anonymity and all.
"We have finally figured out how to send value over the Internet - faster, cheaper and more securely. We are not going to 'unlearn' that," said Jinyoung Englund, spokeswoman for the Bitcoin Foundation, the currency's top advocate.
Forget money made of paper and metal. Bitcoin lives as a computer code and is created and traded electronically.
Of course, that does raise some legitimate concerns. Your entire account could be wiped out if it's hacked or your computer is lost or destroyed. Remember the British man who threw away a hard drive with $9 million in bitcoins and lost it in a massive garbage dump?
But it also means that you can transfer money from one side of the globe to the other in a flash. No fees from banks. And because bitcoins are generated by an algorithm, there are no government central banks that can induce inflation and devalue the money.
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