How bitcoin could change the world -- even if it crashes
The price of digital currencies like bitcoin, litecoin, ethereum, ripple and others have been all over the map in recent months, soaring over 1,000 percent before falling sharply amid government intervention in Asia. The get-rich-quick appeal of "cryptocurrencies" has everyone from flashy music stars and Hollywood actors to Wall Street and average investors climbing aboard the craze. Within what many experts see as a classic market bubble, however, lies a potentially revolutionary innovation. That technology, saddled with the unfaddish name "blockchain," could change everything from how people make payments online, to how countries fight corruption, to the very relationship between government and citizens. The upshot: If the price of bitcoin were to crash to earth tomorrow, blockchain would likely outlive it -- and continue to reshape the world in myriad other ways. "Blockchain is the technology, and bitcoin is one application of the technology," sai...