[jbjohns]

I don't think Bitcoin is a scam. It attracts lots of criminals of various forms due to the lack of regulation. I don't get the part about funding terrorism and illegal activities. Surely dollars are still the most useful currency for that?

I think digital currency is here to stay. Further, I think most people are wrong about it what it will mean. People seem to see it as some utopian freedom. What I see if a cash replacement that has traceability on a scale which was never possible before. And it's all public (at least for most of the coins). If your government said tomorrow that all your cash would be converted to a digital currency like bitcoin but all existing regulation would be in place then they could watch literally every cent you spend. Further, if it stayed public like bitcoin, so could advertisers. They wouldn't need to place like buttons all over the web to watch what you're doing. They could just watch your account. Using any kind of anonymisers would be made among the harshest of crimes so you cannot escape the observation.

I hear a lot of proponents saying digital currency is the way to reduce the power of government and the banks. I think, in the end, this will give both power on a scale never before dreamed.