Abstract :
2014 WAS NOT good for bitcoin as a digital currency. After surging in value from $100 to more than $1,000 per bitcoin by the end of 2013, the price slipped and slid all the way through last year to sink just below $200 by mid-January. The virtual currency was hit by a number of issues including the collapse of the Mt Gox exchange, which saw more than half a million bitcoins go ???missing???. Yet 2015 could be good for the underlying technology. Despite these failures of confidence, underpinning bitcoin is a concept that could change the nature of ensuring trust online, using its infrastructure to authenticate any transactions without the need for a central authority.