I think the future is in this TYPE of currency, but I think the premise that bitcoin is using to "generate" through mining is the wrong approach.
I've had in the back of my mind an idea for a long time that will take alot of ingenuity to implement, but I'm fairly confident it will be the kind of electronic currency that will sustain itself well after bitcoin.
The concept is based on the idea that there is no centralized or distributed mechanism for determining who has "mined" the currency. Each individual just creates an account, and over the lifetime of that account sustains itself based on comparisons with others whom they've transacted with. The algorithm would need to adapt to attempts to defraud it, but think about this.
If I am transacting with someone who has been spending the currency like a mad man, their currency can be seen as less valuable to the overall population (since they may be a statistical outlier in usage of the currency). When someone has spent too little, this can also be a negative, since new and unestablished accounts mean the person may be less trustworthy, etc.
I think the key to this may be in the ability to tie an account to a person's real identity somehow.
The concept around it really puts everyone on even footing when the currency first hits the market. None of this madness. Sure you can probably make money for a while with Bitcoin, but I'm not willing to bet too much on the long-term sustainability of it, just because it will be like most currencies in the past. Some will start with alot, and some will be left out to dry with none. It's simply not as appealing as a self-regulating currency.
Some basic calculations (based on creating 30000 bitcoin keys per second) tell me it would take you approximately 1.2239x10e60 centuries just to get through 1% of all possible addresses.
Does anyone else read this and wonder whether anyone competent is handling this project? Even the commentators from this article don't seem to understand how to scale a website.
I totally get the argument. But in my experience it's rarely the first idea that you end up running with, or that will work on the market. It's generally significantly different project in the end if you're able to get to where the market is telling you to go.
This leads to the idea that unless the code is conceived well up front it's highly unlikely you're going to be able to learn from the market and adapt to what it's telling you if you're working with a bunch of ill conceived code from the get go.
To all the PHP haters. Feel free to bask in the glory of knowing pointers and monads like the back of your hand, and leave making useful apps and making money to PHP developers. That's fine with me :)
I wouldn't advocate the use of antiquated technologies to accomplish this. The idea here is currency-free communities who live just as efficiently as currency-rich communities. But you have to start somewhere. What are the tools you need to build in order to build the tools to build the tools that build the tools, etc. that you need in order to live as efficiently as we do today.
Sure it wouldn't be as easy for many, but imagine a line below which folks who live in a currency-dependent economy would actually be better off to leave it. As more and more people fall below that line, the alternative way of life becomes more viable to sustain itself.
The thing that the wealthiest folks don't seem to realize is it's in their best interest to ensure the little guy has money. When a significant percentage of the population loses incentive to accumulate wealth you lose value on a global scale.
I think the only way this system can start to equalize itself is if people start to learn how to live off the land again. Once we have self-sustaining (properly nourished, educated, etc) commmunities who can live without currency (animal kingdom has done it since it existed) the system will finally be able to balance itself.
Once people realize currency is a man-made thing, and is not necessary to live fruitful, productive, enriched lives (the one real hurdle left is energy self-sufficiency), the system will finally be able to balance itself.
The fact that more and more startups are learning to self-govern is more reason to be optimistic that the social constructs that rule our worlds today are going to be a thing of the past. Hopefully sooner than later.