Bitcoin’s noble goal is no more. Time for regulation | Money

The driving force behind bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency, was that it would create a payments system outside the existing financial system. It was all very noble.

Here was a currency for those with principles with no official entity standing behind it, just a series of computer codes backed up and verified by other computers. (Remember this was 2009, when it was fashionable to bash bankers for almost collapsing the world economy).

Every generation has its anti-establishment tribes, and so it seemed fitting in the age of the second tech bubble and global capitalism that some would jump on the bitcoin bandwagon.

Money follows money, so as the value of bitcoin soared, more cryptocurrencies began. Then terrorists, drug cartels and criminal gangs realised that an anonymous