Izabella Kaminska — The time for official e-money is NOW!

A chief attraction of Bitcoin is as an alternative payments system that greatly reduced transaction costs. That is to say, it is more economically than conventional payments systems and also as secure as cash (see Bitcoin: Marc Andreessen Explains It All for You — A web visionary makes the case for virtual currency having world-changing implications by Harry McCracken). As a result, this is definitely going to happen, all the negatives notwithstanding because as long as Bitcoin is instantaneously convertible. Governments should just catch up with technological innovation. That could reduce or eliminate even the small transaction costs involved with converting Bitcoin. These transaction costs are unnecessary and unproductive economic rent. They need to go and if government won't act, then the market will.

The Financial Times | FT Alphaville (free registration required)
The time for official e-money is NOW!
Izabella Kaminska

Bloomberg Business Week — Iranians discover Bitcoin

The bottom line: Iranians are resorting to virtual currency to move money into and out of the country in a way that Western authorities find hard to detect.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek
Dollar-Less Iranians Discover Virtual Currency
Max Raskin with Ladane Nasseri, Yeganeh Salehi, and Peter S. Green

(h/t Max Keiser)