Outside In | The bitcoin revolution isn’t coming. Here’s why

Forgot your digital wallet password? Tough luck. More reasons there won’t be a cryptocurrency revolution

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A man uses a bitcoin ATM in Hong Kong. A recent YouGov survey in the US said that 62 per cent of respondents either had never heard of bitcoin or believed it was for criminals. Photo: AP

Published: 2:11pm, 5 Jan 2018Updated: 10:30pm, 5 Jan 2018

“Kidnapped cryptocurrency boss freed in Ukraine after US$1m bitcoin ransom”, read the Financial Times headline last weekend, breathlessly capturing both our fascination with this exotic new concept, and with its seemingly indelible links with the global criminal underworld.

Unlike my tech-loving friends, who are fervently convinced that a cryptocurrency revolution is upon us, I waver between unease and unconcern. Unease because of a random fear that hackers may descend on my laptop, kidnap it, and demand I pay them in bitcoin that I have not the first idea how to buy or deliver. Unconcern, because I still cannot convince myself that this revolution is anywhere in sight.

If you have a digital wallet full of cryptocurrency and you lose your password, that money is almost certainly gone

MIT report, Scientific American

My appetite for the subject was whetted last week by a brilliant but totally perplexing full-page infographic splashed in the Post, and by three smart but intimidating articles from MIT folks in this month’s Scientific American. I commend both, but warn you will need a quiet room and a cold towel wrapped around your head to digest them.

My conclusion? I marvel at the mathematically mind-boggling lengths to which our tech-savvy enthusiasts have gone to liberate us from bank fees, but see far more downside than up. If our cryptocurrency champions are right that our current global financial system is “too complicated to manage and regulate, let alone understand”, then how come they don’t recognise the mind-numbing complications their labyrinthine “solution” puts in their place?

The tech-savvy idealists and libertarians will at this point dismiss me as a dinosaur that is myopically unable to recognise our inevitable future. But I take comfort that I remain in good company. A recent YouGov survey in the US said that 62 per cent of respondents either had never heard of bitcoin or believed they were used for criminal purposes. A customer survey by HSBC found that 59 per cent of respondents had never heard of blockchain technology. Of the 41 per cent who knew about it, around four fifths did not understand it.