Bitcoin is just one attempt to restore "free trade"

Bitcoin is like any "fiat currency" ... it has no intrinsic value.  Just like the US dollar, it is not backed by any substance of real value. The main thing that makes Bitcoin different from the US dollar is that Bitcoin is not recognized as "legal tender," that is, no one is required by law to take Bitcoin in settlement of a debt.  No one forces anyone else to use Bitcoin. A Bitcoin transaction is agreed upon by both parties and that is what makes the transaction.  Seal it with a handshake.  Neither party is accepting the promise of a government that the currency exchanged is "legal tender."  It represents business back-to-the-basics.
As my young friend, Kris, observed, "I feel like days of trading are going to come back."

It's a return to the forms of trading that built civilizations ... and a departure from the destructive path down which we're being taken, to a world in which the producers of wealth (goods and services) are enslaved to those who simply control the trading exchanges, financial lending institutions, and banks..

And many people fear that.

But commerce, trade, has historically been exciting, adventurous and, yes, even dangerous.

Bitcoin is nothing just another attempt by human beings to restore some of the humanity that's being sucked out of the world by the insatiably greedy.