More Money, More Problems: The Bitcoin Virtual Currency and the Legal Problems that Face It
Daniel T. Smith · Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons (Case Western Reserve University) · 2012
What is Money? The answer to this question is vastly different today from what it was a century ago: physical currency has increasingly become a tl;iing of the past. More and more of our transactions involve plastic cards and electronic communication between computers-a series of ones and zeros being passed from buyer to seller through a series of intermediaries. Moreover, the currency that underlies those ones and zeros-United States dollars-is a pure simulacra, pieces of paper completely decoupled from any tangible backing.4 Our dollars are no longer redeemable in gold, or anything of