Bitcoin has been in the news a lot over the last few weeks. It’s astronomical rise, then the crash after the Peoples Bank of China took cautionary moves to avoid it destabilising the Chinese domestic currency and finally the recovery of Bitcoin’s price over last few days.

The attention that Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are getting should come as no surprise. The internet is creating a meshed society in which each of us is able to start businesses, trade goods, conduct relationships, publish, editorialise, and conduct politics, all without needing an intermediary to empower us. An alternative currency that is managed not by a bank but by the consensus of its users, becomes increasingly necessary as this meshed society matures.

For more detail and commentary check out this weeks InfoWorld article from Meshed Insight’s Simon Phipps.