BBC website carrying article on future George Osborne Bitcoin speech
Our next door office neighbour Dan from Bitcoin company Coinative pointed out a BBC article to me this morning that covered a George Osborne Bitcoin speech. The thing is the George Osborne Bitcoin speech hasn’t happened yet and whilst the BBC talks about it in a knowledgeable manner it is all futures.
You really have to ask yourself why the Beeb has bothered. Usually news websites are dead keen to be the first to get news out about an event because the first to print gets the highest spot in the Google search rankings. The BBC however has such huge global presence that surely it doesn’t need to do this.
The government approach to Bitcoin is going to be an interesting one to follow because in reality the virtual currency runs contrary to how a government wants to work. They need to know what you are up to financially so that they can tax you. The whole point of Bitcoin is that you can remain anonymous. How therefore would a government be able to grab your cash. Moreover it would have to grab a bit of Bitcoin (if you get my drift). The one thing a public purse needs with its finances is stability and Bitcoin is nowhere near stable.
Notwithstanding that, George Osborne is right to be taking a look at Bitcoin. Bitcoin does represent innovation and the possibility of introducing new ways of working for businesses. We are a long way from a government endorsement of Bitcoin but this is a step in the right direction.
Getting back to the BBC, the whole article basically just says that George Osborne is going to announce that they are going to look at Bitcoin. This afternoon. Seems to me that the Beeb could have waited until this afternoon and announced it after the speech! What have they gained? Oo they rank #1 on Google for “George Osborne Bitcoin“.