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The Importance of Bitcoin, a Perspective

Neal Stephenson’s cypher-punk sci-fi novel The Diamond Age takes place in a future where encrypted currencies and e-commerce have moved most economic transactions into “darknets” beyond government’s capability of monitoring and regulation, causing tax bases around the world to implode and bringing on the collapse of most nation-states.

This recent video below from OnlineMBA explaining Bitcoin, while well made, appears to be grounded in such fears as the darknets raised in the Stephenson novel.

Encrypted currencies and darknet economies have been promoted by such thinkers as David de Ugarte and John Robb as a real-world model for resilient communities in the impending age of empire collapse. 

Jason Calacanis and his colleagues at LAUNCH describe Bitcoin as “The Most Dangerous Project We’ve Ever Seen” (May 15, 2011).  Not only is it “the most dangerous open-source project ever created,” but “possibly the most dangerous technological project since the Internet itself.”  It “could topple governments, destabilize economies and create uncontrollable global bazaars for contraband.”

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