Peercoin

Categories: Tech, Banking

It's a cryptocurrency. A competitor to big names like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Only this one has a friendly brand.

Also known as PPCoin and P2P coin, it represents a virtual currency dedicated to the peer-to-peer mentality.

It was released in August 2012 by Scott Nadal and someone going by the pseudonym "Sunny King." It operates on a system that integrates both proof-of-stake and proof-of-work models. The combination allows the coin to expand without energy-intensive mining, making it more energy efficient compared to rivals like Bitcoin.

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Finance: What is Bitcoin?4 Views

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and finance Allah shmoop What is Bitcoin shmoop All right

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people Well for starters it's virtual currency What is that

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like Monopoly money Well kind of Okay but wait So

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wh what's not virtual currency This stuff really Bills coins

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gold A check with your validated signature on it when

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you actually have cash in the bank Money in the

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old world is pretty much anything that everyone agrees is

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valuable Like over the history of civilization People have used

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all sorts of weird items to pay for things like

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shells and cattle heads in whiskey and stuff like that

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Credit cards apple pay in Venmo Yeah way easier to

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buy a lot with then 182 seashells All the above

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are Fiat currency which means they're not backed by any

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specific commodity or thing of value Instead they're backed by

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the government that issues them a handshake and a promise

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and that's pretty much it Well in the old days

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if you had a dollar meant there was a dollars

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worth of gold out there with your name on it

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you could walk into a bank and demand your little

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chunk of the yellow metal in return for that paper

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$20 bill The dollar was worth a dollar because well

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you could change it into that much worth of gold

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What we pretty much gave up on the gold standard

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in America anyway for good around the time of the

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Great Depression and now dollars worth a dollar Because why

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Well we say it is or more precisely because the

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government says it is Yeah the United States right to

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tax its hard working citizens is what backs up that

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promise Well Fiat currencies air printed by a government and

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have value in part Or mostly because while the citizens

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trust in the government and in part well we all

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agree that paper bill has value Okay so now to

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the virtual part of virtual currencies have moved on from

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government participation They have value because well the users of

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them say they have value That's it Not much else

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to it The idea of virtual currencies isn't really all

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that new Ask your parents about these things Yes original

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Disney dollars You'd buy a book of them for like

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20 bucks or so in the A ticket on Lee

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got you into like the garden tour of carefully manicured

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roses is by Carnation Plaza Then you have the e

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ticket at the other end the best one that got

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you into the parts of the Caribbean in the haunted

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house You know when it came out well the Disney

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dollars were a virtual currency on Lee They were on

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paper and well really low tech Yeah And then they

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got wet after you landed through the Matterhorn that get

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all pulped out you have to throw him out Was

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very sad All right Zip forward 1/2 century Nowadays the

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virtual part means the same thing It means when we

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say virtual reality Basically it means that exists in a

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computer It's not riel It's an algorithm somewhere Well some

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clever entrepreneurs decided that the U S greenback didn't offer

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enough flexibility or rough you know anonymity You know if

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you wanted to buy nuclear secrets or child porn or

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illicit drugs or any other ill miserable and awful purchase

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that buyers didn't want anyone around them to know that

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you were buying while then here was your ticket Bitcoin

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is security It comprises a complex system of quote log

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in rappers unquote whereby a user must wrap around content

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all kinds of security codes which protect the valued financial

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nut inside the hard shell Initially the market was seated

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with a kind of financial Easter egg hunt where the

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controller's a Bitcoin buried value nuts all over the web

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Nut hunters had to answer extremely complex math questions in

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order to win their prizes But if they won they

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were worth real cash money Bitcoin is the most famous

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virtual currency but it's far from the on ly one

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e Syria is a big one You've also got light

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Klein Dodge a Coin and Manero There are lots and

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lots of competitors and there's a whole market of people

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looking to make new ones all the time They have

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conventions and workshops and organizations Yeah it's a thing And

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why not If you can get your virtual currency Tio

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take hold while you have an instant fortune literally printing

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your own money but not counterfeit like actually your own

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money like you were the central bank or treasury of

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your own country The trick of course is getting other

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people to come on board and trust you You need

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other people to agree that your virtual currency is actually

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worth something Well a big part of the sell job

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has to do with how the new currency is propagated

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How are more of them made How are they traded

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How do they work You know because it doesn't take

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much to make more virtual currency Like almost literally nothing

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at all Hear it Shmoop Central We started making shmoop

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points Doesn't take much input to make a 10 more

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shmoop points or 1,000,000 or a trillion more shmoop lines

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It all takes the same virtually Neil computing power But

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when people used gold for money well they knew that

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gold supply was limited There was gold mining that brought

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new gold to the surface but the total amount of

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gold was finite and it was really hard to get

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while sometimes it just showed up in a river in

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California or South Dakota or something And people would rush

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there with hands and pick axes But generally speaking globally

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someone couldn't just announced that they now had another 1,000,000

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ounces of gold in their computer deal with it Well

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virtual currencies try to follow this model in their own

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virtual way to the extent that while the process usually

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used to produce more virtual currency is called mining Yes

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from the gold concept new supplies of the currency appear

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using harder and harder math problems done by computers Convincing

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users that this process of making the currency is on

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the up and up is part of the challenge of

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founding a new currency But national currencies have a head

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start in this area right You trust the United States

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more than some kid who was born in 1989 by

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virtue of being sovereign states while recognized by other sovereign

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states at least geographic countries have some credibility but same

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forces come into play Gold needed to be mined and

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there was a finite amount of that on Earth Countries

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could just print all the currency they wanted using higher

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and higher denominations like you know with virtual currencies Well

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there was no practical limit no real cost of production

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But there is a consequence to producing tons of the

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stuff If a country starts printing more and more currency

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it sparks inflation devaluing its own individual currency unit eventually

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maybe getting into hyper inflation territory and people running around

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with wheelbarrows full of cash to buy a carton of

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milk The same supply demand dynamics of basic EQ on

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work for regular currencies and for virtual currencies Think of

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the competing virtual currencies like the different national currencies we

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have in the non virtual world We've got U S

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dollars in British pounds and euros and again in Swedish

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krona and a whole bunch Other stuff right Well these

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currencies worked perfectly in their home countries but out of

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context there value gets a little shaky Try to use

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some Swedish krona to buy a hot dog from a

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New York street cart vendor guy or offer again to

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buy meatballs off a meatball cart in Stockholm That's kind

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of funny but it doesn't work We'll Bitcoin and the

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other Cryptocurrencies have similar problems If you want to buy

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a rocket launcher on the dark Web Bitcoin works great

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But if you want to buy a box of cookies

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from the Girl Scouts standing in front of the grocery

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store well it's not gonna work You'll need some good

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old fashioned US dollars In that way the relationship of

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crypto currencies to the general market is similar to how

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we treat stocks that trade on the stock exchange Their

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recognised to have value sure but the value is often

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tracked by an outside currency like the dollar Well Bitcoins

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and other virtual currencies trade on markets You Khun swap

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them out for real dollars and use those dollars to

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buy Girl Scout cookies or street hot dogs or whatever

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Just like stocks you might hold 100 shares of Google

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but if you want to spend some of their value

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you have to turn them into dollars right like a

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stock or any kind of market Traded anything Bitcoin and

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other virtual currencies or subject to bubbles and bus The

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bubble part happened for Bitcoin in 2017 At start of

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the year one Bitcoin was valued about 900 bucks Then

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it took off sky rocketing through the year it peaked

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in December of that year it just under $20,000 Then

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the bubble burst At the end of well January 2018

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it had fallen back to around 11,000 was below 10,000

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by February and within a year of its peak it

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was in the $3000 range Yeah about 80% off its

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highest value well even off its highest levels The market

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for Bitcoin remains big because of its shifting value The

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size of the Bitcoin market changes is the dollar denominated

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value of the currency moves But as of late 2018

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early 2019 the market cap for Bitcoin has bounced around

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$100,000,000,000 Well the idea behind Bitcoin maybe great get the

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government out of currencies Borderless money for the future But

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their issues One is security Like governments have to fight

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counterfeiters The more valuable of virtual currency becomes well duff

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The more likely there are hackers out there looking to

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crack the code and they don't have to be sinister

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creep working in secret in their mommy's basement Countries can

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fight counterfeiters because they can pass laws making counterfeiting illegal

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Bitcoin can't do that meaning that if Google wanted to

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put its sizable brainpower to work making Bitcoins free for

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anyone well there'd be nothing to stop them along the

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same lines Virtual currencies could end up trading one authority

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like governments for another like corporations like if Google or

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Apple or Disney decided to make their own currencies and

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squeeze out Bitcoin Any theory Um and the others Well

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that happens We're looking at the future when the Girl

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Scout is at the door knocking away and all she

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takes is ah Google coin And you only have Disney

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dollars Three point Oh and your virtual wallet Yeah No 00:08:56.744 --> [endTime] cookies for you Morning

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