These online crypto-currencies have made the financial world more fun. It’s all so gloriously bonkers. First there was Bitcoin, the ‘peer-to-peer’ online payment system founded in 2009. Almost nobody understood how it worked or what a Bitcoin actually was — something to do with chains of code, computer ‘mining’, and a ledger system — but that didn’t stop anti-government types everywhere embracing the idea. A decentralised currency that politicians and bankers cannot manipulate and spoil — what’s not to like?
Following Bitcoin, all sorts of junior crypto-currencies have popped up, mushroom-like, across the web. There’s litecoin, namecoin, novacoin, worldcoin, quarkcoin, feathercoin, alphacoin to name only several out of thousands. Are they the future of money, or just a series of Ponzi schemes? Nobody knows. The fun part is trying to figure where — if anywhere — the libertarian gobbledygook ends and the value begins.
For would-be speculators, the sensible advice is to be very sceptical.
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