I thought bitcoin had a lot of promise and ran a client/"miner" for a few weeks when it first came out, but then lost interest. I heard about the EFF thing a few days ago and took a look at bitcoin.org. I was amazed to see that bitcoin is thriving! Not only can you buy and sell coins for real money, there is a lot of demand for them, and speculators are hoarding coins in the expectation of price increases. Back at the beginning Eugen and I were playing with it and I sent him 1000 coins as a test, and he sent them back. That would be worth $250 now, pretty amazing. This is the first time I recall that a currency with no intrinsic value has become this popular. It's uncharted ground, with many open questions. What value will bitcoins settle on? Will there be a fork with perhaps more attractive rules? Will scammers (who love transactions that can't be reversed) taint the currency? And the big question, what happens when bitcoin comes to the attention of governments? Can it win? Hal Finney