Humm, as a developer I feel a bit idiot because I never really ask myself the question... and always think it was the same thing. After a quick look it seems I'm right, both compile and run the same way... it's different name for specific version of ECMA Script. http://stackoverflow.com/quest...

Yep but people *CAN* join another pool if they want. And that WILL happened, I expect their percentage to drop to 30% in the next month. A centralized authority like the government or the central bank you CAN'T bypass it. The voluntary aspect makes a big difference. People just warn that 40% is too much because once you have majority you can do nasty thing.

It's base on offer and demand, there is hundreds of copy/paste of Bitcoin (because it's open source) but none of them have the infrastructure and the acceptance as Bitcoin... that's a good reason why Bitcoin worth more. Also the other alt-coin have even worst "early adopter" holding, for instance Quarks Coin have already 95%+ already mine in a 6 months, while Bitcoin we are at over half in *4* years.

There is no username and password, it's a public key and a private key but yes if you lose your private key someone can post under your identity. Just like if you lose your PGP private key, someone can send an email and pretend to be you.

Because other alt-coin are only copy/paste of Bitcoin, have no infrastructure and are less secure because they there is less miners. How many merchant accept Litecoin or Namecoin?

It's not banned at all, it's said that bitcoin can be freely buy and sell by the people but it's regulated like a commodity (gold, silver, oil) and there is no guarantee or protection from the standard financial institution. Bitcoin will actually benefit from a statement like that. Governments and Banks stay away from my bitcoin and leave the real free market work!

The bitcoin already crashed multiple time read this forbes articles (http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2013/04/11/an-illustrated-history-of-bitcoin-crashes/) everytimes calling the end of the bubble.

Dollar and Euro can be print at will from their central bank. Bitcoin cannot be print in mass, so yes it's fiat, but it's a limited fiat currency and it's value will not be destroyed by inflation.

I don't think you have any idea of the current network size, the top 500 supercomputer in the world don't have a chance against the current network. The NSA probably have a few super computer... so who care. And even if they managed to get equal to the network... they would mine half of the remaining and already half is mined... so 25% for the NSA and those super computer would stop spying on us :)

Ok you win, so unless it's adopted by everywhere it's not a currency... how do you think an alternate currency can start without government forcing to use it? I guess your answer it... only government issue currency are "real" currency. Fine I would accept that but soon or later you will realized that bitcoin has a lots of advantages. Right now I can send $10 000 in China for 5 and it's instant... try that with your "real" currency... it will take days and cost you over $100.

Bitcoin is not used for pricing... it's used as a payment method... just like Visa, Master Card, Paypal or western union. People should stop looking at the price of bitcoin and learn how great this technology masterpiece is. All currencies are based on trust. USD is based on the trust that the US gov will not print a gazillion dollars, the Amazon dollars is based on the trust of amazon. Bitcoin have no trust except in the cryptography, nobody can move your Bitcoin, add Bitcoin to the eco ecosystem without following the rules determined by the majority of the users. THAT is what makes Bitcoin unique and masterpiece!

How about 20,000 merchants including a bunch of subways around the world that accept Bitcoin. Ok it's a not a "real" currency from your definition because no government approved it. Fine, it's a public ledger where only the owner can change it's own value and can't be shut down or manipulated by anybody.

4100 stolen, not sure how many they had. The current total number of bitcoin in circulation almost 1.2 millions each at about $ 300 piece. number of bitcoin in circulation price chart

Unlike traditional bank, you can trace the money stolen where it goes but unable to get it back. Bitcoin have no way to force a transaction except if everyone would update their software to approve a transaction without the valid cryptographic signature something unlikely to happen considering the thousands of instance running.