Usually I agree with Charlie Stross, but I think he's building his case on a few false assumptions. To mine bitcoin and make a reasonable profit, you really ne

Usually I agree with Charlie Stross, but I think he's building his case on a few false assumptions. To mine bitcoin and make a reasonable profit, you really need dedicated mining hardware. This means that stolen electricity is not really an issue, as even very large botnets wouldn't be able to keep up with a few $1000 of custom hardware. Similarly, while Bitcoin's future carbon footprint is something to be concerned about, I think it's too early to draw a line of exponential growth and conclude the world is doomed. There are a large number of potential bottlenecks when it comes to computing hardware. I'd also question how useful Bitcoin is for avoiding taxes, when the exchange rate is so volatile. There are far safer ways to avoid paying taxes, many of them legal. In my view, the most interesting part of Bitcoin is not its value, or its potential anonymity, but that it's an open protocol for distributing wealth, in the same way that TCP/IP is an open protocol for distributing data. There has already been some interesting experiments around micro-payments with Bitcoin that would never have gotten off the ground without it.