“Bitcoin is reaching new heights thanks to a combination of speculation on future value and genuine, undeniable usefulness. Think about it: Why can it take days or weeks for banks to send money around the world, when an email travels in seconds? Does the money travel by steamboat? Are they loading gold bars onto the side of a camel and sending it over the mountains of Mongolia? Of course not. The real answer is depressing – banking is a stagnant market running on long-obsolete infrastructure, which improves only when forced to by government. [..] When Metro Bank opened in 2010, it received the first new UK banking licence issued in 150 years.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25130261
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