Bitcoin is the Linux of payments. And its killer apps will be for US dollars. by Druce Vertes

I was scanning the news the other day, and someone on Hacker News mentioned that half the items above the fold on StreetEYE were about Bitcoin. And I said to myself, I haven’t seen the neckbeards this excited since the early days of Linux.

And it hit me, Bitcoin is the new Linux.

Go back to 1998, the days of The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the Halloween Document, when open source zealots were gleefully foreseeing the day when freedom-loving hackers would take down the evil Microsoft empire.

Linux was how virtuous hackers were going to end the hegemony of robber barons who stifled freedom and innovation and extracted monopoly rents.

And a glorified screwdriver shop called VA Linux Systems went public at $30 and hit $320 on its opening day.

Read the full blog post on ValueWalk here.