Stanford scholars say Bitcoin offers promise, peril

Bitcoin is a stateless, digital currency that allows people to make transactions with no middlemen - no banks, no transaction fees and no governments. Instead of printing banknotes or minting coins, a list of the registration numbers of each of the "bitcoins" and their owners is kept. In the last week, however, Bitcoin has found itself under siege for a variety of problems, and since then, the price of the coins has tumbled. Susan Athey is an economics professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business who researches Internet economics. Venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan founded the Stanford Bitcoin Group. He has a Stanford doctoral degree in electrical engineering. They spoke with Stanford News Service about Bitcoin: Is the Bitcoin protocol trustworthy? Athey: In terms of trustworthiness, a large community of experts has examined the protocol closely and found it to be secure.