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Just listened to a Planet Money episode on Bitcoin Losers on my 13hr drive to Great Falls, MT. Apparently there is no way to retrieve your money if you don't know your "private key". One guy threw away a computer that had bitcoin worth $200,000,000 today. I had thought about buying bitcoin when it first came out, but I figured it would for sure collapse. I still think that, but I could have made a tidy profit beforehand.
The currency is unsustainable for several major reasons. First is the enormous energy required to process transactions. Another is that currency isn't worth anything long term if the government doesn't bless it. Finally, currency needs to depreciate to "solve" debt problems. Bitcoin appreciates in value since it cannot be created, but can effectively be destroyed by misplacing the private key.
Bitcoin is dead, it just doesn't know it yet. Long live blockchain.
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