Stanislav nails it again, best Bitcoin-related writeup I've seen.
"Bitcoin is an elegant jewel of mathematical engineering because, for the first time in the entire history of money, it makes it possible to conduct commerce without trusting anyone. [...] By rejecting the seemingly-irrelevant world of human trust-building (beyond strict adherence to promises) one asks to be thought of as a mechanism. That is, to be reasoned about game-theoretically. And reasonable people will sit around and try to predict exactly when and in what manner you, the master of reasoned thought, will betray them. To his credit, Popescu appears to be making this tradeoff consciously."
