You can actually "launch a Bitcoin currency" too, if you're not convinced check out LiteCoin, PPcoin, SolidCoin, Bitcoin Testnet coins, Rucoin, or any of the cl

You can actually "launch a Bitcoin currency" too, if you're not convinced check out LiteCoin, PPcoin, SolidCoin, Bitcoin Testnet coins, Rucoin, or any of the clones that are based on original Bitcoin source. http://github.com/yebyen/testnet-debian http://github.com/yebyen/testnet-debian At one point I was able to find a blog or github from GavinAndresen that detailed a few more ways to make your bitcoin blockchain incompatible with the standard chain, but I think this kind of activity is frowned upon due to the risk of 51% attacks. Unless your coin is approaching the popularity of Bitcoin (or somehow you got there much earlier... time machine?), it is vulnerable to being taken over by a small fraction of large Bitcoin miners' community coming over and playing with their clocks and hashing your chain into oblivion. This is not necessarily all bad, or worse than creating Bitcoin in the first place. You can lose money in banks when your government fails, too.