Yes, Bitcoin solves BGP (in some way). It solves also a bunch of other completely unknown problems:

* how to prove some information existed at a certain time
* how to create a public ledger of ownership
* how to issue a currency without requiring a nation state army to enforce scarcity
* how to reach agreement over a communications channel on value

BGP is a term Lamport came up with, to describe a certain theoretical model.


Okay paper, but I wish they would have referenced Lamport and more relevant work on quorum systems. Bitcoin implements Lamport's partial order of events for the first time, yet its not described here.


True, but there are other "attacks". Such as calling up Chinese miners and convince them to do a certain thing. The smaller that number and the more closer related, the worse the situation. I believe the best thing to do is to recognize the genius of this invention, but then think about how to do something better on that basis. One of the biggest problems is the complexity of the system, i.e. the large technical debt. E.g. last year there has been 1B$ investment in this area, and there been almost no progress at all in terms of advanced applications (just an increase in noise levels). I think the possibilities are largely not explored. Mostly because the Bitcoin system is extremely complex and actually not that versatile compared to what might be possible. Most discussions take many design aspects for granted, when they might be a hinderance. The PoS systems have been very helpful thinking about these things in different ways. Many also don't know the pre Bitcoin designs, Bitgold and b-money, which are also helpful to consider, see http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt and https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bit_Gold_proposal . Actually quite surprising since satoshi said Bitcoin is an implementation of those ideas:

Quote from satoshi:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=342.msg4508#msg4508

See also:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583.msg11405#msg11405