Bitcoin just turned ten years old, but is still not all grown up

By Felicity Duncan.Wednesday marked Bitcoin's tenth birthday – on 31 October, 2008, a person or persons using the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto released a white paper describing a "peer-to-peer electronic cash system," which would over time grow into the Bitcoin network..By some measures, Bitcoin has been successful. It opened the way for cryptocurrencies, attracted massive investment interest, and achieved stratospheric valuations for a short time. But measured against the goal outlined in the Nakamoto paper – being an accessible, useful, efficient payments system – it has failed. Despite all the hype, only a tiny, tiny fraction of global payments are made in Bitcoin (most of them to the creators of ransomware)..___STEADY_PAYWALL___.Some punters are now trying to sell the cryptocurrency as something other than a payment system, namely as a store of value. But unlike traditional stores of value, like gold or T-bills, Bitcoin has a volatile price and an unclear basis for its value. So, at ten, Bitcoin is still a solution in search of a problem..In Premium today, you can read Alec Hogg's discussion of Ramaphosa's defense of business and entrepreneurship. You can learn how IBM is trying to reinvent itself with a massive acquisition, and you can find out why your next phone may fold up like a book.

Bitcoin just turned ten years old, but is still not all grown up

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