Paul Ford, Bloomberg
On the days when Bitcoin crashes, a holiday atmosphere takes over in my corners of the internet. People tweet screengrabs of Reddit fights. It’s always good fun to watch strangers grieve as their digital nonsense nickels melt into slag.
Watching the world of initial coin offerings over the past few years has been like watching popcorn pop. Everything rattled around in the hot air for what seemed like forever and then pop! Mastercoin! Ethereum! Bancor! Tezos! Then other kernels started popping, and now we’re eating popcorn for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Ford says he stumbled upon Bitcoin in 2009 and found it vaguely interesting.
I understood it—or rather misunderstood it—as yet another take on micropayments, with a dash of old-school virtual currencies such as Beenz and Flooz, plus some spam-fighting ideas. There’s no easy way to explain Bitcoin, but let me wave my hands and try:
- Read Ford’s full explanation at Bloomberg
- Here’s a 3,500-word guide in plain English
- Check out John Oliver’s unique take on the whole cryptocurrency thing.
