Nothing on the Bitcoin label turned out to be in the bottle. As a means of payment, it is cumbersome, volatile and expensive. It has destroyed value rather than storing it. Its decentralised technology was sold to investors as being unique. It has been anything but.
Those "hard forks" have created numerous Bitcoin spin-offs over the past year, and the vested interests of those who make money from doing this – by shifting their own coin to the new spin-off, bringing the miners along and effectively taking control of the new currency – have triumphed over the dreams of a neutral blockchain system that would treat everybody equally.
Even the hedge fund folk, who thought they could use sophisticated options to bet on the boom while covering their downside, have been proven wrong in a market where prices and information flow are not transparent – and are often manipulated.
