Bitcoin currencies call for rapid power-subsystem development

摘要

In just five years, the novel currency Bitcoin has achieved widespread adoption around the world, demonstrating the power of advanced computing to deliver novel ways of creating and storing value. At the same time, it has demonstrated the volatility of such novel cryptocurrencies as governments work out how to react to them and users wrestle with what is the natural value of an entirely virtual form of money, backed neither by commodities nor a central bank. Even if Bitcoin itself flounders, it has shown there is a global demand for a decentralized currency free of political intervention and that robust mechanisms already exist to prevent fraud that can be exploited by future competitors to Bitcoin, some of which are already appearing, such as Litecoin or Namecoin.