Goldman Sachs: Bitcoin Is Not A Currency

techcrunch.com

20 points·rukshn··6 comments

"'On net, more than taking off as a widely-used alternative currency, it is much more plausible that bitcoin eventually has a significant impact in terms of its innovation on payments technology, by forcing existing players to adapt or coopt it,' the authors write."

Yup.

The inventor of BRICS with hedges in the other hand? Say it's not so!

My irony meter just pegged: Goldman Sachs is sanctimoniously criticizing Bitcoin as an unreliable medium of exchange, a shaky institution not to be trusted.

Let's all savor this moment together.

Yes this is ironic.

But let's not judge the article and assertion based on our preconceived bias against Goldman Sachs. I think that their conclusion “We would argue that bitcoin, and other digital currencies, lie somewhere on the boundary between currency, commodity and financial asset” makes a lot of sense.

Really, Bitcoin does have more similarities to a commodity than a currency (especially a fiat currency). It's fungible, untraceable, and unregulated.

All true. One difference between Bitcoin and dollars is public perception driven by multiple forces -- experience, some untested assumptions, and social expectations. Alto TBTF (Too Big To Fail) plays a part -- we're not going to allow dollars to fluctuate too wildly and destabilize the economy.

But another difference between Bitcoin and traditional media of exchange is that Bitcoin relies on very good, utterly reliable software, and that doesn't exist at the moment.

xbt is not untraceable

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