A Bitcoin autopsy

Bitcoin, an alternative to fiat currency, rose fast from its inception in the last three year, but just as quickly unwound.

Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer digital currency created in 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. No central authority issues new money or manages transactions. Instead, money is generated collectively by a network, also known as miners. As recently as June 2011, one Bitcoin was worth US$29.57. Today, Bitcoins trade under $5 and the number of institutions that are accepting them has dwindled.

Benjamin Wallace at Wired looks at what happened:

“You could say it’s following Gartner’s Hype Cycle,” London-based core developer Amir Taaki says, referring to a theoretical technology-adoption-and-maturation curve that begins with a “technology trigger,” ascends to a “peak of inflated expectations,” collapses into a “trough of disillusionment,” and then climbs a “slope of enlightenment” until reaching a “plateau of productivity.” By this theory, bitcoin is clambering out of the trough, as people learn to value the infallible code and discard the human drama and wild fluctuations that surround it.

But that distinction is ultimately irrelevant. The underlying vulnerabilities that led to bitcoin’s troubles—its dependence on unregulated, centralized exchanges and online wallets—persist.