Speaking as a Bitcoin skeptic, the really cool thing about it is that it opens up a world of virtual collectibles.
Bitcoin isn't the future of money, it's more like Netscape -- a new way of doing things we haven't thought of before. The follow-on products should truly be amazing. Good to see this.
Not sure from your comment if you got the gist of it... but this is not an alternative to Bitcoin, the currency. It's an alternative to bitcoind, the library.
If anything, the article suggests, the rise of such alternative implementations of the same protocol could make the network as a whole more resilient and stable.
Why does that disagree with what he said? Netscape understood the same protocols all future browsers did, with only some feature misalignment, yet eventually disappeared.
I think he is saying the same thing to could happen to Bitcoin, the current use cases of the currency may be only the beginning.
Some have said that it fixes potential issues with Bitcoin (quicker confirmation time for instance). However no one really knows how much confidence will be needed for real transactions at this point, so most of the fixes are of questionable importance.
Bitcoin isn't the future of money, it's more like Netscape -- a new way of doing things we haven't thought of before. The follow-on products should truly be amazing. Good to see this.