Reuters on Bitcoin

Felix Salmon's mainstream article for Reuters on Bitcoin pretends to be more thoughtful than most.

The rhetorical deception is subtle. He doesn't try to fool us with lies. He just leaves out the truth.

He doesn't mention that due to its already indispensable advantages when moving funds internationally, BTC can no longer disappear overnight. Even if an equally independent but improved digital currency emerged and seemed the more likely candidate for a new global standard, the transition would be orderly. People would have ample time to exit one and enter the other, likely with acquiescence and cooperation of both systems. There would be no more cost, probably significantly less, in making that transition than Forex currently charges for any routine currency exchange.

The article is rife with other sins of omission, deliberately under-representing bitcoin's most important elements.

To wit:

It makes no mention of the well pre-planned divisibility of BTC into Satoshi(s), the established term for 0.00000001 BTC that exchanges and retail payment engines will eventually use, not BTC itself. In fact, the term Bitcoin will likely recede lexically or semantically to refer more to its underlying technical architecture, not the unit of currency.

Further, the length of time during which BTC will continue as the vehicle for large inter-currency exchanges and as an inflation-proof form of commodity-as-capital storage will be substantial, even after it cedes primacy to the Satoshi for smaller retail payments. Bitcoin itself will increasingly shoulder the longer term responsibilities of Gold and Silver, but with the added advantages of effortless divisibility and portability.

I do agree the history of commodity and stock bubbles suggests that BTC is likely to ease up, back up, and consolidate at various stages, but the monetarily savvy will patiently continue to participate until and unless an alternative not only appears, but matures.

Until then, the shrill voices of people like Mr. Salmon will try to distract us with their vested interests and frantic need to delay their own vulnerability.

Bitcoin users who started out around $11/BTC, dropped as low as $3-4, then climbed to where things are today, did so by thinking of the dollar as fluctuating, not BTC. That thinking will continue to allow a remarkable degree of calm amid the cries of purported 'bubble' and extremes.