I can't immediately tell if M-Pesa is a digital currency in of itself or a P2P payment platform. I'd personally be skeptical of any centralized virtual currenc

I can't immediately tell if M-Pesa is a digital currency in of itself or a P2P payment platform. I'd personally be skeptical of any centralized virtual currencies as their inherent lack of tangibility means they could easily be seized, shut down voluntarily w/o compensation or crippled by regulatory interference. There's been several spectacular failures of this sort, including Beenz, Flooz and InternetCash - all examples of dot-com flops, as well. A whole bunch of others are around in the present. These should best be treated as toys, if even used at all. The cheapness of Bitcoin is significantly overstated by focusing only on high-level aspects of conducting transactions and not on the more deeply technical implications. Finally, the article's assertion that banks will have to evolve from being mere transferers to providing more services sounds anachronistic, given that this has been the case for quite a long time already.