Did you know that even as major banks who thought of Bitcoin as snake oil re-assess its blockchain technology as a major breakthrough, and smart money pours into blockchain startups, the few at its cutting edge are increasingly divided against themselves? This is no bad thing. Bitcoin believers–and I’ve come to number myself among them– believe that, one way or another, it will usher in a new era of frictionless commerce and programmable money. Bitcoin true believers think it will ultimately do to Wall Street what the Internet did to fax machines, while also decentralizing much of the Internet. Bitcoin extremists believe it will replace “fiat currency” like the US dollar or the euro (in the Bitcoin world, “fiat” is a four-letter word) and bring on the Libertarian Rapture. If those are the stakes, then obviously we want competition.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/06/a-bitcoin-battle-is-brewing/