| Well, all your concerns may very well be provably correct, from a purely academic perspective. I just think the question you keep missing is: Does it matter in practice? Our entire world runs on imperfect systems. Can we really already tell whether bitcoin is worse? Where is your mathematical proof that the current monetary system is secure against polynomial time attacks? Where is your rigorous security definition for the current monetary system? Could it be we are witnessing attacks on the current system right now, resulting in enormous concentrations of wealth through interactions that we barely understand[1]? Could it be we are witnessing the authorities abuse the current system to cut off organizations like Wikileaks[2]? You seem to demand a system that is perfect in every sense on day 1 and replaces the US Dollar on day 2. Yet couldn't it be that it is actually the academic imperfections, the pragmatic approach of bitcoin that make it a success? Who knows whether airtight mathematical security is even the most important requirement? Perhaps the known attacks are "hard enough" already, or will be after a few more patches? Perhaps bitcoin will fail spectacularly in a few years due to scalability instead of security issues? My point is: We simply don't know. We have no precedent, nothing even remotely close (please correct me if I'm missing it, I honestly can't think of one). Thus I disagree the case is nearly as clear cut as you make it out to be. [1] http://baselinescenario.com/2012/11/29/high-frequency-tradin... [2] http://wikileaks.org/Banking-Blockade.html |