, Columnist
Bitcoin and the Value of Financial Freedom
For all their flaws, cryptocurrencies will always be useful to people who want to avoid prying eyes.
Pirates need currency, too.
Photographer: Al Bello/Allsport/Getty ImagesInvestors' frenzied pursuit of bitcoin has bared the flaws of cryptocurrencies, but also highlighted their main value proposition: independence from regulated, mainstream, established systems.
At the beginning of 2017, bitcoin was still worth less than $1,000 and all the quaint, confused expectations about the cryptocurrency were still intact: It would, as Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in his (or her, or their) manifesto, make financial transactions cheap, fast and secure without requiring people to give up too much information. But as money piled in and the price rocketed -- fivefold, tenfold, almost by a factor of 20 -- it turned out that these dreams didn't work out at scale.