IWillNotBiteYourDog

Here is an explanation that I hope relates better to your shows.

In 1944, Niels Bohr asked: is it possible to play a game of poker without physical cards? One can play chess without pieces, but to play poker, you want to deal the cards and not reveal them until later. An even simpler question is, how can you flip a coin while on the phone with someone you don't trust?

Lots of brilliant mathematicians and cryptographers worked on these and related problems for decades. Bitcoin is one of the 'virtual currencies' - probably the most popular and widely accepted one right now. It differs from most other such currencies (like 'Borders bucks' that your characters probably still have:) in that there is no central authority to issue new bitcoins. Rather new coins are created (mined) by people who serve the bitcoin users community by verifying the transactions - confirming that no one has e.g. double-spent their coins. Any geek can become a miner, although the earning potential much less lucrative than it was a few years ago.

Exactly, the entire community acts as its own cop/regulator. The miners keep checking that all the transactions in the ledger add up, and for doing this job, they get rewarded by occasionally finding more coins that they can spend. Thus there's no need for a central bank to issue more coins, and no need for additional regulators - other than 'everybody'.

Anyone can act as a miner as much as they want to. However these days most bitcoin users don't bother with mining, just use the coins and rely on others to do this work.

Thank you very much for your time Mr. Sperling. I am concerned that the administration will restrict 401Ks to treasury bonds and prohibit 'riskier' investment choices, similar to what Argentina did in 2008 (some old news links below). Can you please comment on CFPB's plans to regulate 401Ks?

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6evsfTuYtN0gWlilNg2Y6DZD50A http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122460155879054331.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/business/worldbusiness/22argentina.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/world/americas/dismay-over-argentinas-nationalization-plan.html