Thinking about Bitcoin always makes me think whether it could be profitable to invent a new "Bitcoin 2.0" -- officially it would provide some improvements over the old protocol, but of course the real reason would be to have all those new free coins just for yourself.
In case of success, this has a potential to bring a lot of money. Therefore some money could be spent now, for example to weekly spam Slashdot with articles about the advantages of "Bitcoin 2.0".
If there is a good chance of a successful takeover, this is what rationalists should be doing. :D
(As a side effect, such takeover, especially if repeated, could destroy the credibility of digital currency. Yes, there is a limited number of coins in a bitcoin protocol, but there is an unlimited number of protocols. At that moment, the next step would be to invent a new "Bitcoin Omega" to fix this problem. Etc.)
It's actually a good idea to think about this problem. There must be some way to make the hashing contest useful for some other purpose; or if not, a better hash than SHA can be picked (like memory-bound hash functions).
Why would anyone switch? Well, SHA will be broken sooner or later. When that happens, people will be interested in switching to a Bitcoin 2.0 (eg. by destroying regular bitcoins in exchange for new bitcoin2.0s).
EDIT: and clean up other parts of the protocol: http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist
Less Wrong used to like Bitcoin before it was cool. Monthly threads popped up around the same time a pricing bubble brought mainstream attention last year. When the bubble popped, and price continued to deflate, discussion on this site stopped entirely. Was there a change of sign in the social status of the topic, is the topic fully explored, or has there simply happened nothing of interest over the last year?
If you are not familiar with Bitcoin, here is one intro I happen to like.
Kaj Sotala lists a number of previous threads on the topic:
Less Wrong seems like a good place to discuss recent developments, if one does not want to suffer the inanity of the officially unofficial forum. If you are not longer interested in Bitcoin, perhaps send your remaining balance to the Singularity Institute?