Each year, new financial scams pop up in which unsuspecting investors get fleeced by crooks and con artists.
Five years ago, it was Bernie Madoff.
This year, it was a barrage of insider trading. And next year, one way or another, the bitcoin flimflam will come to a head (or a tail).
The Tinkertoy “crypto-currency” is nothing more than a modern-day game of three-card monte, with a little Sudoku thrown in, just to add a touch of mystique.
In 2013, thousands of people became convinced they had to get in on bitcoin before it changed the flows of capital around the world. Like most schemes of dubious merit, the sexy intrigue of incalculable calculus combined with no central oversight suckered them in.
We know the socialite Winklevoss twins are in; we even know PayPal founder Peter Thiel is in for $3 million, the equivalent of 10 cents to you and me.
But nobody knows who the creator of bitcoin is. That’s masked in secrecy and protected by circular cryptography.
The creator (or creators) who goes by the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto may be a man, a woman or a group. Nobody knows.
Yet the real money has rolled in. People willing to blindly believe have deposited billions into bitcoin “wallets.”
This system is not like Thiel’s PayPal, which settles its accounts in the old-fashioned way, in dollars and credit cards.
Nor is it like dollars, which have US Treasury backing. Or bonds, with their taxing-authority support. Or gold, or silver, which have a value based on weight per ounce.
Bitcoin is even better! See, if you solve a mathematical puzzle — you get more bitcoins!
Yes, I said a puzzle.
People are manufacturing computers designed just to “mine” bitcoins.
Next year will surely have its share of scams and con artists.
But for 2013, the winner and still champion just has to be bitcoin.