>The erratic price prevents it from being a store of value or a unit of account. Which doesn't matter. That's the entire point of the author's article. It's

>The erratic price prevents it from being a store of value or a unit of account. Which doesn't matter. That's the entire point of the author's article. It's unfortunate that the majority of HN comments are about "currency" and "medium of value" in response to this particular article. The author tried to talk about The Other Interesting Thing that seems to be flying under everyone's radar: the authentication of information by distributed digital consensus instead of a central institution. That's why the author tried to use the Linux analogy. While many folks were measuring success via the meme/joke "2001, 2004, 2014, etc is the Year of the Linux Desktop!", Linux has quietly "won" on the backend servers, on Android phones, on cable DVR boxes, in Raspberry Pi, etc. The desktop as a health indicator of "Linux success" becomes irrelevant. Linux: ignore "desktop war" and substitute "servers, internet-of-things, embedded devices" Bitcoin: ignore "currency vox populi" and substitute "decentralized trust of information." To meta analyze why the discussion about Bitcoin's "other" tech possibilities is always derailed by "currency" and "fluctuations", I think it's due to: --The word "coin" embedded in the name "bitcoin" --5 years of breathless hype stories (on HN and elsewhere) around bitcoins rising --Silk Road money laundering, etc Since bitcoin is so tainted now with "currency", we need a mental reset. Here's what the author is saying the world wants: The time is ripe and the underlying technology exists (internet reach, cryptographic hashes, etc) for the adoption of a decentralized authentication of information platform. Let's think about it. If we were to list the technical requirements for a "decentralized authentication of information" service, it would include things like cryptographic hashes, block chains, a transaction API, etc. Basically, it would end up looking a lot like Bitcoin! We could call the service GitHogAnyInfo (to riff on the names of decentralized source code Git Mercurial). Or call it ConsensusInfo or whatever. Just call it any name that does not have "coin", "doge", or "money" embedded in it. If you do that, everyone's brain shuts down and we get trapped in the discussion about "currency fluctuations". For example, look at these: https://www.globalsign.com/en/timestamp-service/ https://www.globalsign.com/en/timestamp-service/ https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp-works/?q=1 https://www.digistamp.com/technical/how-a-digital-time-stamp... Neither of those services have "currency" anywhere in their description. Can a bitcoin-as-info-platform instead of bitcoin-as-currency compete with, or replace services like those? That's the thesis the author is trying to convey. That's the angle the SV investors are envisioning.