Merrill Lynch Responds to Bitcoin

Bitcoin enthusiasts, or whatever you call us, are eagerly awaiting the public opinion of major banking, investment and government bodies. This will, in many ways, declare a line in the sand moving forward. And just recrntly we got a formal statement from David Woo, head of global rates and currencies at Merill Lynch.

We believe Bitcoin can become a major means of payment for e-commerce and may emerge as a serious competitor to traditional money transfer providers.

Assuming Bitcoin becomes (1) a major player in both e-commerce and money transfer and (2) a significant store of value with a reputation close to silver, our fair value analysis implies a maximum market capitalization of Bitcoin of $15bn (1BTC = 1300 USD).

Well this is is rather comforting. But the formal statement is cut and dry and quite factually defendable. it gives us not much to hang our hats as far as actual news, but it is a seemingly new impression of an individual that matters in the world, for better or worse.

Many are speculating that the banking systems will just provide their own alternative to bitcoin. This is clearly an option, for the resource to create bitcoin is very easy. This is why hundreds of alternatives are propping consistently that have marginal, if any legitimate worth.

Others of course, are predicting it will be outlawed entirely as a banking entity.