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Or, alternatively, the relay team used steroids...

It seems the main problem is that I place an order, someone knows about it and is able to buy ahead of me and slightly raise the price on me. That is unfair. And is more akin to the rival relay team knowing my team's shoes beforehand and placing tacks inside them to slow me down...

So, of the 12 million bitcoins in existence, this illegal site has 1.5% of them. Not sure what cut they take of sales, but say it's a tenth - that means that at least 15% of bitcoins are used for criminal reasons.

I have had anti-virus on my mobile (Avast), tablet (Lookout) and Linux laptop (Clam AV) for years. I know Macs have antivirus too. What's the problem with this?

It is certainly inaccurate to describe bitcoins as a ponzi scheme. They're more like subprime loans in 2006.

Excellent post. We're all living with the consequences of decisions made by long-absent managers to cut costs - temporarily - and a culture of yes-men who deliver (late) to an interpretation of specs, based on literal interpretation rather than common sense or understanding of the customer.

I think, given the nature of bitcoin, it's faily obvious why you'd want to deposit anonymous cash to get bitcoins. Hint: Silk road/Cyprus.

Not sure you can order a latte with bitcoin, unless your latte costs £100 or whatever bitcoin has fluctuated to today. But semi-seriously, if there are only 21 million bitcoin ever possible (lots of which will not be liquid), can it ever be a useful mass-market currency?

The main issue with bitcoin is the perceived fraud/ponzi concerns around mining. Early adopters do well, late adopters are suckers. Mining is dominated by those with access to many PCs, either legitimately or through trojans etc. Printing your own money...

Am I the only one that feels highly uncomfortable at a supposed kids-saving scheme encouraging children to spend their money on an on-line game. How responsible is that?

Brett, that 27 years article has some extremely misleading data behind it. Most of the short lived currencies are temporary ones instituted during wartime (there are 10 entries for each of the Confederate states individual dollars, for example). There are numerous duplicates for regional versions of the same currency - usually issued when a power was collapsing from war, so naturally short lived.

And of course, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

Only if they can push whatever the mobile solution charges onto the customer.

Which sort of summarises the ultimate aim of Walmart and others, which is to get rid of their own interchange fees, and push them onto the customer and/or mobile solution providor.

However, if the mobile solution charges are greater than whatever Visa's are (quite likely) then that will make Walmart's goods more expensive. Which Walmart will be very unlikely to accept.