Physical wealth has not necessarily been very secure.

It's completely reasonable, even if some Bitcoin currency purists wouldn't like it, to have credit and debit card payments denominated in Bitcoin rather than dollars, and net settled on Bitcoin instead of on Fedwire.

With original cryptography, you are just trying to secure one narrow thing - say, communications - and you are trying to secure it from a third party. But you can't secure it from the party you are talking to if they forward your email; it doesn't matter how well your email is encrypted.

Instead of the cashier and ticket-ripper of the movie theater, the block chain consists of thousands of computers that can process digital tickets, money, and many other fiduciary objects in digital form. Think of thousands of robots wearing green eye shades, all checking each other's accounting.

The digital revolution has disrupted most traditional media: newspapers, magazines, books, record companies, radio.

Digital life and digital services are a multi-wave business.

There are always ridiculous things on television or on the Internet that make people go, 'Did you see that?' That could be anything from a clip from the 'Real Housewives' to someone jumping off their roof and missing the pool to a zillion other things.

It is not just software glitches and corrupted memory cards that should be on the minds of election officials. Hackers pose another very real problem whereby an election could be tilted towards a favored candidate.