The author has not done enough research into Bitcoin to make a well-informed judgment. Of his arguments, one of them is very strong: governments will not sit st

The author has not done enough research into Bitcoin to make a well-informed judgment. Of his arguments, one of them is very strong: governments will not sit still for anything that undermines their economic power. Topics related to his other three claims have been discussed at great length and detail by Bitcoiners. There is no inherent connection between the use of Bitcoins and a gold standard - nobody is trying to persuade world governments to use bitcoin as a backing for the value of their fiat currencies. Bitcoin is an alternative. Security issues relating to cryptograhic protocols and implementation are a risk, but not as catastrophic as he suggests; Bitcoin has already dealt with a number of security problems successfully. As for Bitcoin not working offline, I am unconcerned - Paypal doesn't work offline, but that hasn't doomed it to failure, and for that matter, a number of "physical bitcoin" ideas have been worked out. All that said, the argument "governments will make it criminal" has been my perspective for a long time, and why I don't use bitcoin personally. Conceptually, bitcoin is brilliant and revolutionary, but I'm terrified of my government and figure its only a matter of time before bitcoin users are all charged with some absurd trumped-up conspiracy/racketeering violations.