I’m back!

And over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the joys and horrors of being me. Insights from the world of the web and social media (that sounds posh), perplexed musings about the latest exemplum of ‘customer service’ to get my goat, ruminations about Christianity, the occasional travelogue (when not stuck on South West Trains near Bentley), and anything else that needs to be dislodged from my brain and happens to fall this way.

So, to get the show back on the road. Here’s a thing: Bitcoin.

As you may have read elsewhere, there may (or may not) be £4 million of buried treasure on a landfill site in South Wales. Ahoy, me hearties, etc.

Even before this revelation, my mind was being mildly exercised by the issue of whether it is ethical for a charity to receive donations in Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is ‘a consensus network that enables a new payment system and a completely digital money. It is the first decentralized peer-to-peer payment network that is powered by its users with no central authority or middlemen.’ Still confused? OK, Bitcoin is ‘pretty much like cash for the Internet’ (source: bitcoin.org).

Being a responsible sort of chap, I consulted. One of my colleagues responded with ‘What’s Bitcoin?’. Not an unreasonable question, though I may have been somewhat harsh with my taunts of poverty in response. (According to currency exchange website xe.com, a Bitcoin is currently worth over £600. Though as it’s not legal tender in any country, the value is somewhat moot anyway.)

My other colleague responded even more negatively, pointing out – quite correctly – that Bitcoin is believed to be the currency of choice for transactions that organisations might not especially want to be fully audited. Arms, drugs, people… that kind of thing.

But can a currency – or pseudo-currency – be intrinsically ‘bad’? Should we eschew sterling, dollars and yen because illicit buying and selling has been going on in those currencies since time immemorial? Given that my musings were taking place at the same time as the boss of Co-operative Bank (‘the ethical bank’, no less) was being outed for all manner of inappropriate behaviour, I’d argue that the behaviours of individual users of any financial system cannot transmogrify some kind of morality on to that system itself.

Bitcoin is in the ascendancy. Whether its surge of popularity continues is a question taxing greater economic minds than mine. But if a supporter wishes to give a Bitcoin donation to charity, would it be prudent to accept it? What do you think?