In this O'Reilly Data Show Podcast: Sarah Meiklejohn on analytic applications for blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.

The European Commission signaled it will try to impose rules on virtual currencies such as Bitcoin after the bloc’s banking regulator ordered lenders to shun them.

“It’s imperative to move quickly on this issue,” Chantal Hughes, a spokeswoman for Financial Services Commissioner Michel Barnier, said by e-mail today. “The potential for money laundering and terrorist financing is too serious to ignore.”

In December, using bitcoin to pay for a cold Corona at New York City's Old Man Hustle bar was a smart move. With the digital currency up 64-fold for the year, patrons got lots of bitcoin bang for their beer. Bitcoin-priced goods were experiencing "massive deflation," ... ... And now? The price of a bitcoin is around $442 on CoinDesk, down more than 40 percent from the start of 2014. Bitcoin brew-buying isn't nearly as attractive, as massive inflation takes root with items priced in the digital currency. For example, in December one bitcoin bought about 128 Coronas at the Lower East Side bar, not counting tax. It would buy about 74 beers today

Marking this coming-of-age moment, the Bitcoin Foundation signed on as a conference sponsor and hosted a packed workshop Thursday to discuss research developments for bitcoin.

It was “a watershed event,” said Emir Gun Sirer, a professor at Cornell University. “We have this community of academics who have been thinking about these problems since the 1980s and suddenly here’s this actual currency that people are using. It’s exciting.”

Forty-seven percent of respondents say they would sell Bitcoin, while 11 percent say they’d buy it. Another 7 percent say they’d hold the virtual currency, while 35 percent say they haven’t got an opinion about it.

Forget metal, paper and plastic is the future of currency virtual? Bitcoin is the oldest and best known of these virtual payment systems that are outside the banking system and free from state control or backing. That leaves the currency open to wild market fluctuations rising like a rocket then falling like a stick. So is virtuality the future of currency? Or is Bitcoin about to bite the dust? A Money Box listener and bitcoin enthusiast debates the pros and cons with a critic.

It should be so attractive to musical artists of all stratas, they all get heavily ripped off by the agents of the infrastructure that gets their work distributed. Being able to set up your own money acceptance capability closes the loop for the musical artists, they can now do everything for themselves (which has gradually evolved through the years with the help of digital technology; first recording and production equipment, then the distribution with CD's and mp3's, taking the money is the last step)