Will 2014 be the year of the Bitcoin breakout?

“Like it or love it, bitcoin has been a constant theme of headlines for the past year, as 2013 marked its coming of age. Last year’s nerd money fad has become this year’s most talked about product,” writes Patrick L. Young an expert in global financial markets.

As the US Federal Reserve continues to print money, many investors are looking at alternatives. Perhaps Bitcoins will be on your list of investments in 2014?

Young notes:

Ultimately, nature abhors a vacuum and with western political leadership an increasingly distant memory, citizens are becoming increasingly restive about the parlous state of financial governance. Throughout the West, the ravages of quantitative easing [QE] have helped the wealthiest prosper, while ordinary citizens have struggled through a grinding economic plight, which has left voters feeling increasingly abandoned by government.

Into this void has stepped something which had been mooted for many years: a popular electronic currency. Bitcoin is filling a gap self-interested central bankers are keen to suggest doesn’t need filling. Establishment media has been wrong-footed as the Copernican Revolution in finance creates not just bitcoin but a series of parallel financial universes where independent money is at the center of commerce, as opposed to government manipulated fiat currency.

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Romain Dillet from TechCrunch writes, “As 2013 came to an end, many reflected on last year’s biggest tech news — and Bitcoin was a serious contender. But the main question remains: why are people interested in Bitcoin?”

“This whole debate reappeared when Charlie Stross stated that “’Bitcoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind — to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.’ Paul Krugman then quoted his post, neither denying nor approving this thought. But Chris Dixon (and Fred Wilson in the comment section) reiterated their strong interest in Bitcoin while sharing that they are both Democrats,” reports Dillet.

Catalina Camia from USA Today reports, “Rep. Steve Stockman says he’ll accept Bitcoins to help fund his campaign for the U.S. Senate against Sen. John Cornyn. One catch: The Federal Election Commission deadlocked in November when asked whether political action committees and candidates could accept the virtual currency. Stockman tweeted a link to a Business Insider story saying he would accept Bitcoins in his uphill Texas GOP primary against Cornyn, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican leader.”

Young concludes by stating, “2013 ended with citizens increasingly alienated from government as a monetary ally and edging closer to “In Bitcoin we Trust”. Bitcoin itself may only be the first stage of a revolution, similar perhaps to the Netscape browser at the birth of the web, or the Ford Model T which popularized automobile transport. Ultimately, however you look at it, this was the year when bitcoin made its irrevocable mark on history.”

So what’s in your wallet? Bitcoins?

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  1. […] wrote a column questioning if 2014 would be the breakout year for the Bitcoin. It appears that it very well may be! John Stossel from Fox Business News […]

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