Nick Gillespie on Why Bitcoin – or Something Like It – Will Survive Bankruptices and Government Crackdowns

The shuttering on
Tuesday of Mt. Gox, writes Nick Gillespie,

hasn’t just left customers of the Japanese-based bitcoin
exchange panicked to the tune of about $300 million, it’s
instigated the latest round of comparisons to tulip-bulb
mania, sour anti-semitic rants from neo-Nazis, and “Is Bitcoin
Finished?” stories.

So: Is bitcoin finished? The short answer is no. And while I
explain why, think on this: If and when the end does come for
bitcoin, an internet payment protocol that only cranked up in 2008,
it won’t be because of cyberspace’s answer to bank
robber Willie Sutton undermining belief in a virtual
currency (ain’t they all virtual?), it will be because governments
around the globe are trying their damnedest to choke off a payment
system that allows people to cut out the middle man.

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