I don't understand enough about the details of how Bitcoin works to evaluate how apt that is of an analogy it is here. I've heard some very positive as well as

I don't understand enough about the details of how Bitcoin works to evaluate how apt that is of an analogy it is here. I've heard some very positive as well as a large enough number of surprisingly negative experiences with it making it hard for me to evaluate and thus hard to trust. I'm having a hard time following your argument about the sharing economy showing us that distributed trust systems work more efficiently. Many of the major players in the sharing economy I've seen (Uber [0], AirBnB[1]) have all moved from open-ended, less regulated distributed trust systems to tightening and more strongly imposing rules as a centralized authority to rebuild damage to their trust due to bad actors. To avoid thoughts that I'm cherry-picking companies with controversies, my broader point is that the sharing economy isn't really built differently than Amazon or any other marketplace model. Central authorities (TaskRabbit, Exec, AirBnB, Homejoy, etc) inject trust into p2p marketplaces because without their centralized authority, p2p marketplaces wind up like Craigslist or, even worse, Silk Road. [0] http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/18/technology/uber-background-checks/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/18/technology/uber-background-c... [1] http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Airbnb-hosts-must-appear-in-person-to-comply-with-6025767.php http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Airbnb-hosts-must-app... edit: minor wording correction