Bitcoin is an entirely different beast. Freed of government regulation and control, there are few ways to put a name to who is buying and selling the currency. But the shadow surrounding Bitcoin transactions goes deeper. Bitcoin has a tradition of anonymity (one its developer or developers has fully availed themselves of). People often don’t talk about their personal use of Bitcoins. That’s often what’s attracted them to the currency in the first place.
In August 2011, NPR in America did a show on the topic. Their journalists tried to speak to find some real-life users of Bitcoins. Sitting at a cafe that accepted Bitcoin as tender, the reporters spent a dreary day watching customers pay with dollar bills. Finally, a single customer walked up and paid for his coffee by electronically transferring the currency. They approached him, hoping to speak to him about why he uses Bitcoins, but he baulked.
The whole point of Bitcoin is its anonymity, he said. He wasn’t about to give it up, even to explain why he uses it to buy a cup of coffee.
A couple of different places have published various Bitcoin “rich lists” tracking the accounts with the biggest balances. The most recent one I could find is from nine months ago. Then, the wealthiest Bitcoin user had 438,825 Bitcoins, a fortune worth around $US30 million using today’s exchange rate. But the identifier attached to the account is a 40-character-long string of numbers and letters.
The Bitcoin hoarders know who they are, and how much money they’ve made in the past few months. But no one else does.
Myriam Robin is a journalist with LeadingCompany. You can follow her on Twitter at @myriamrobin This article first appeared on LeadingCompany.
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
