Clippy noticed that Bitcoin seems to make it easier for software agents to earn money, convince humans to do jobs for them, and optimize the universe in a paper-clip friendly direction.

If Clippy is right, is it a problem?

Singularity Institute visiting fellow Thomas McCabe is running GetBitcoin, a notable money handling service.

Does he have any insights to share?

Gwern wrote an article arguing that Bitcoin is an ugly protocol: Bitcoin is Worse is Better

What does gwern think today?

How should one extend or rework the protocol to make Bitcoin, or a successor more appealing?

Wei Dai is quoted in the original whitepaper. He writes:

If you read the Wikipedia article, you should know that I didn't create Bitcoin but only described a similar idea more than a decade ago. And my understanding is that the creator of Bitcoin, who goes by the name Satoshi Nakamoto, didn't even read my article before reinventing the idea himself. He learned about it afterward and credited me in his paper. So my connection with the project is quite limited.

What does he think of of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general? (Still mining?)

Scott Aaronson recently published a technical paper on quantum money, unrelated to Bitcoin. Would implementing this scheme require keeping qubits stable for an indefinite timespan, for the money not to go poof?