Calling it a requirement and then saying it is self-evident because it's something you require and imagine other people do as well doesn't actually make it a requirement.

A lot of people are perfectly comfortable with some amount of risk, and those people use bitcoin. It's not like legal tender is going anywhere, despite what some dreamers may say.

Disclaimer: I own zero bitcoins.

I fail to see how this is any different than people putting money into bank 1000 years ago and a bank robbery destroy their wealth. Isn't that a perfectly accurate description of what happens when an exchange gets hacked? Isn't that more or less what happens when a bank makes bad investments and loses your money, so that when everyone attempts to withdraw at once (bank run), the bank collapses [assuming no "FDIC"]?

As far as I'm concerned, the biggest problem isn't "regulation" or "central authority" or "is bitcoin currency?" it is "who takes the loss when sh*t hits the fan?"

In the bitcoin world, the winner is YOU.

> It is pretty obvious from the preceding sentences that this is an opinion ...

No, it was stated as though it were a fact that a currency requires the backing of a central authority. It's a testable proposition, and the fact that Bitcoin exists and functions as a currency, and the fact that the present Fed chairperson asserts that the government has no authority to regulate Bitcoin, is the needed counter-citation.

Link:http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/janet-yellen...

Quote: "The Federal Reserve has no authority to supervise or regulate Bitcoin, chair Janet Yellen told Congress on Thursday."

So the original claim is false.