Enthusiasts and Sceptics Debate Bitcoin at London's O2 Venue

Apr 7, 2014 at 17:28 UTCUpdated Apr 8, 2014 at 13:30 UTC. A panel comprising of both bitcoin enthusiasts and sceptics discussed everything from awareness and education to regulation and entrepreneurship at a panel discussion held at London's O2 venue on Saturday, 5th April.

Titled 'How Bitcoin Can Fight Back Against the Hackers and Recent Setbacks', this discussion took place before the much-awaited Bitcoin Fight Night kickboxing event, and was co-organised by CoinScrum, Firestartr.

Hosted by Chris Ellis, bitcoin enthusiast and co-founder of feathercoin, the goal was to have developers, philosophers and bankers engage in a dialogue about bitcoin.

The main theme of the debate was to address security concerns around bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

"People need to understand that bitcoin is more like gold. If somebody takes cash out of your wallet, you aren't going to get it back."

"Bitcoin will be a success when people don't have to know how it works. No one looks inside their iPhone and scrutinizes how it works. No one looks inside his or her TV or credit cards; they just work. When bitcoin becomes close to adoption, it will be because entrepreneurs have invested into things that make it so that you don't need to know how it works. That's one of the things that is holding back adoption right now."

While some of the panellists were discussing how to increase the usability of bitcoin, Dyson was more vocal about his scepticism regarding the technology as a whole.

"There are design flaws in bitcoin," said Dyson.

"Here's what bothers me about bitcoin: the first version of the Internet was basically connecting few different universities in California. Now, we are using a better design. With bitcoin, everyone is still stuck on first design and first version."

Attendees of the meetup also had access to discounted tickets for the first Bitcoin Fight Night, where they could see an evening of kickboxing, as well as a stunt by broadcaster and MaxCoin founder Max Keiser who symbolically took on a fighter representing traditional currency.