Porn, gambling, and malware: Bitcoin as the ‘Net’s Wild West
Ars Technica quoting yours truly:
These developments don’t surprise Jerry Brito, a researcher at the libertarian Mercatus Center at George Mason University. For most uses, he said, dollars (or other countries’ official currencies) are simply more convenient, so it’s hard for Bitcoin to gain traction. But he argued that Bitcoin’s relative anonymity and the lack of intermediaries gives it a crucial advantage for “illicit stuff: drugs, gambling, pornography, getting money out of countries where there are restrictions on moving funds. That’s where it’ll establish itself first.”
That’s what Eli Dourado predicted a while back.
