A prominent British Bitcoin developer blogged last week that the potentially revolutionary concept is dead. 
“Despite knowing that Bitcoin could fail all along, the now inescapable conclusion that it has failed still saddens me greatly,” wrote Mike Hearn, who was the Bitcoin guru at Google before becoming the Bitcoin guru with Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Bitcoin is a currency based on a digital ledger rather than a commodity like gold or the “full faith and credit” of a government. It has no central authority. It has been steadily growing in acceptance since its unveiling in 2009.
Hearn writes the the Bitcoin system can’t move money, has unpredictable fees, allows buyers to take back payments after obtaining goods and is controlled by China.
A vicious blow-up last summer involving death threats and malware attacks between factions led by Hearn and California programmer Gregory Maxwell, an open-source advocate, prompted Hearn’s post of doom.
The Hearn side wants the Bitcoin system to allow for larger blocks of transaction data while the Maxwell side opposes this because it would led to a centralization of authority, removing the “rule by math” and bringing politics into the decision process.
Well, it appears the Maxwell side won hence the Hearn column.
So is this end of Bitcoin or just growing pains? Time will tell.
The New York Times has a more detailed story about the matter here.
Bitcoin Dead Says Developer