Does Bitcoin still matter?

Bitcoin has a marketing problem.

Talk of the digital currency has petered since its introduction in 2009, and much of what remains hasn't been good for P.R. Discussions about Bitcoin can sound like inscrutable technobabble to non-adherents (most people fall into this category), and the system has been dogged by hacking and fraud, making a concept that is hard to wrap your head around also hard to get behind.

But the establishment in late January of the first regulated U.S.-based Bitcoin exchange, by Coinbase, a major broker, may help legitimize the Bitcoin and protect investors. The second such exchange is in the works, fronted by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, two of the largest-known holders of Bitcoin currency.

"Bitcoin has a sales job to getting people to trust it, which is ironic because it was set up to be a trustless system," said Paul Vigna, who co-wrote with Michael J. Casey "The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money are Challenging the Global Economic Order," released Jan. 27. "It is sort of opaque and hard to understand and esoteric because it is so new."

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In their book, Vigna and Casey explore the various avenues of potential for a software-based monetary system that lets people anywhere in the world exchange value without banks or other institutions intermediating (or meddling).

About $50 million worth of Bitcoin transactions are done on an average day, a drop in the pan compared with the tens of billions performed by the likes of Mastercard and Visa, but not a negligible amount. Businesses such as Overstock.com are beginning to accept Bitcoin as a payment option and some companies even pay employees in Bitcoin.

For better or worse, Bitcoin is not going away any time soon, and Casey and Vigna contend that digital currency could change the global economic landscape and prevent financial collapse.

Or not.

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Does Bitcoin still matter?