Bitcoin, or How to Hammer in Nails with a Microscope.

By now, nearly everyone has heard of Bitcoin. I will not bother with a detailed account of its mathematical, historical, or political foundations. All of this has been written about at considerable length elsewhere. But a short introduction is in order – if only because the word “bitcoin” has already started to give off a faint smell of spam and cocaine, and it is possible that respectable people who have never heard of Bitcoin will soon be met with less often than respectable people who have heard of it, but pride themselves on staying ignorant of its workings. And being a long-time connoisseur of beautiful technologies which were trampled into the mud by stampeding herds of idiots, I could not resist the urge to say a few words on this subject.