Firstly, let me say I support the concepts behind Bitcoin: an open source non-state backed digital p2p currency that can flatten both payment methods and costs.

BTW - I was introduced to Bitcoin by one of the earliest adopters, he now works for Bitinstant. Here are the main issues I have with Bitcoin:

1. Who created Bitcoin?

We don’t know who created Bitcoin. Why? This is very odd and should disturb potential users.

In November 1, 2008, a man named Satoshi Nakamoto posted a research paper to an obscure cryptography listserv describing his design for a new digital currency that he called bitcoin. None of the list’s veterans had heard of him, and what little information could be gleaned was murky and contradictory. In an online profile, he said he lived in Japan. His email address was from a free German service. Google searches for his name turned up no relevant information; it was clearly a pseudonym.

Source - Wired Magazine The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin

ALLEGED BITCOIN INVENTOR: Please Stop Emailing Me, I Didn’t Invent Bitcoin

2. Insecurity. Bitcoins are stored on users’ computers, the cloud, etc. We’ve seen myriad haXXors pwning Bitcoin wallets & banks. Depending on end users to secure their own systems is problematic.

3. Complexity. Bitcoin is not exactly a simple concept for most people to get their head’s around. Nor is it very easy to use. It’s created by nerds for nerds.

My proposed improvements:

1. Fix Bitcoin to a hedged basket of commodities.

2. Make it easy & secure to use. Realize that non computer engineers need to use Bitcoin in order for it to reach a tipping point.

Conclusion:

I don’t know if Bitcoin will take off in a large way or not. I hope so. My hope is predicated on fixing the issues I laid out above. In any case, I believe alternative currencies and payment methods are the wave of the future. Financial institutions, central banks etc. you’ve been warned — Bitcoin is a shot across your bows.

Interesting pieces on Bitcoin:

Steve Forbes’ Bitcoin: Whatever It Is, It’s Not Money!

WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange schools Google’s Eric Schmidt on Bitcoin

Update, 5/17/13 - Homeland Security seizes account of largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox http://su.pr/4Zotd9

1. The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.

2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.

3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it.

4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.

5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.

6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.

From: “Wooden: A Lifetime Of Observations And Reflections On And Off The Court”

1. Happiness begins where selfishness ends.

2. Earn the right to be proud and confident.

3. The best way to improve the team is to improve ourselves.

4. Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details.

5. Ability may get you to the top but character will keep you there.

6. I will get ready and then, perhaps, my chance will come.

7. If I am through learning, I am through.

8. If you do not have the time to do it right, when will you find the time to do it over.

9. The smallest good deed is better than the best intention.

10. The man who is afraid to risk failure seldom will have to face success.

11. Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.

12. Time spent getting even would be better spent trying to get ahead.

13. It is what you learn after you know it all that counts.

14. Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights.

15. There is nothing stronger than gentleness.

16. You discipline those under your supervision to correct, to help, to improve; not to punish.

17. Goals achieved with little effort are seldom worthwhile or lasting.

18. Make sure the team knows they are working with you not for you. \

19. Be most interested in finding the best way not in having your own way

20. What is right is more important than who is right.

21. You handle things, you work with people.

22. As long as you try to your best you are never a failure; that is unless you blame others.

23. Tell the truth, that way you don’t have to remember a story.

24, Don’t let making a living prevent you from making a life.

25. If I were ever prosecuted for my religion I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.

26. Although there is no progress without change, not all change is progress.

27. If we’d magnified blessings as much as we magnified disappointments we would all be much happier.

28. The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

29. The worst thing that you can do for another person is the things they can and should do for themselves.  Abraham Lincoln

30. It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely help another without also helping himself. Ralph Waldo Emmerson

31. Do not permit what you cannot do to interfere with what you can do.

32. Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Character is what your really are; reputation is merely what you are perceived to be.

33. Love is the greatest of all words in our language.

34. Much can be accomplished by teamwork when no one is concerned who gets credit.

35. Never make excuses; your friends don’t need them and your foes won’t believe them.

36. Be slow to criticize and quick to commend.

37. Be more concerned with what you can do for others than what others can do for you; you’ll be surprised at the results.

38. The more concerned we become over the things we can’t control the less we will do with the things we can control.

39. Don’t permit fear of failure to prevent effort; we are all imperfect and will fail on occasion but fear of failure is the greatest failure of all.

40. Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top.

41. The time to make friends is before you need them.

42. We are many but are we much?

43. Never be thrown off stride in how you behave or what you believe in because of outside events.

44. Nothing can give you greater joy than doing something for another.4

45. Material things are not gifts but apologies for gifts, the only true gift is a portion of thyself.  Ralph Waldo Emerson.

46. We cannot live a perfect day without doing something for another without the thought of something in return.

47. Do not mistake activity for achievement.

48. You can do more good by being good than any other way.

49. Forget favors given, remember those received.

50. Make each day your masterpiece.

51. Make friendship of fine art.

52. Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.

53. Treat all people with dignity and respect.

54. Acquire peace of mind by making the effort to become the best of which you are capable.