Doug: Its a sign of the times. Lots of people are actively looking for an alternative to the dollar. I think Bitcoin is a very good thing, in principle. But after the recent disastrous hack, its probably a dead duck, at least in version 1.0.
Stopped reading right here. Doug has no clue.
Wow. Doug Casey is someone I respect and admire his intelligence and humor. I think Stefan Molyneux said it best: the hacking attempts are simply proof that bitcoin has value, and there are bad guys out there who will steal valuables. Eventually there will be entrepreneuers out there who will provide multiple levels on encryption to safeguard your valuables.
Anyway, I propose that the bitcoin client code be modified to require the user to enter a passphrase that will PGP encrypt the user's wallet.dat by default.