I am also trying to be a responsible spokesperson for bitcoin. I will be presenting at a prestigious business school in August and I am very aware of the importance of words. As eluded to above, bitcoin will be delivered to the masses as a story. We can shape that story now, but perhaps not later. Do you want bitcoin known as a convenient, private way to buy and sell on the Internet, or as anonymous drug money for terrorist?
Actually, bitcoin should be known for neither. Bitcoin is a nonpolitical decentralized cryptocurrency with user-determined anonymity and transaction irreversibility. Most people are happy transacting on the Internet with VISA/MC/AMEX when it comes to plane tickets, hotels, etc. Terrorists and drug dealers already use $100 bills but that is not the fault of the
innocent $100 bill.
I believe that, in the media, bitcoin needs to be positioned as a way to
restore financial privacy to the individual:
1. Secrecy does not equal concealment, but rather secrecy equals privacy;
2. Large-scale private value transfer should not be impeded across national boundaries (money laundering is a pejorative term);
3. Freedom from confiscation and tax levies;
4. Freedom from money being used to track identity;
5. Protection from the depreciating nation-State political currencies subject to constant debasement.
