All,

Thanks for reading. I wrote this article, I worked hard to give it balance, citing three Bitcoin sources, and including Satoshi Nakamoto's take on the current global system of payments posted in a respected blog a couple of years back:

“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work,” Nakamoto wrote in a February 2009 blog on P2P Foundation. “The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.”

Jeff Garzik's analysis:

“Like cash, Bitcoin can be used for good, and it can be used for evil,” according to Jeff Garzik, a Bitcoin developer and creator of www.BitcoinWatch.com, a Web site that follows Bitcoin’s financial trends. Since transactions are public, and thus traceable, the currency is “slightly less anonymous” than cash, he said.

I think Nakamoto's and Garzik's statement here reflects a lot of what I'm reading in this forum. From an EconTalk article I also cited Gavin Andresen's explanation on how Bitcoin's network of users polices the payment system.

My point is that our publication does not take sides. We frequently break stories on the criminal behavior of banks, as well as U.S. law enforcement's eavesdropping on Swift financial messaging; laundering of dollars flowing from drug cartels (Wachovia) and the stashing of funds pilfered by corrupt Afghan leaders from their own central bank in Kabul (hundreds of millions of stolen funds stashed by two major U.S. banks headquartered in New York).

It's safe to say that my editors and myself, as well as all of my sources, were floored by the novelty of this invention, which I liken to something out of a Phillip K. Dick novel. That being said, I reported what many knowledgeable sources said were money laundering vulnerabilities.

Thanks,
Colby