Opinion: Bitcoin's Demise Not Far Away

Says Kevin Roose in New York Magazine

Bitcoin's path to the grave has always been fairly clear to me.

First, the third-party infrastructure surrounding the virtual currency would become shaky, eroding confidence in Bitcoin as a safe and legitimate alternative to government-issued currency. That happened. Next, authorities would crack down on the black-market uses of alternative payment networks and punish third-party companies who failed to stop their users from participating in illicit activity. That happened. And finally, the parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem that come into contact with the normal currency exchange system — the processors where dollars are converted into Bitcoins, the bank accounts where those processors hold their cash reserves — would be cut off. Now that, too, has happened.