[cma]

Couldn't you do that with gold or even earlier, seashells?

[solveit]

You can't send gold over the Internet. The question isn't whether Bitcoin lets you do things that couldn't be done before, it's whether those things are valuable.

[cma]

"For the first time any person can own a financial asset completely decoupled from any government."

[nightski]

Not advocating Bitcoin but it's a lot easier to have your gold or seashells stolen than Bitcoin.

[lmm]

I'm not sure that's actually true, given how common software security vulnerabilities are.