the famed cryptographer, Ralph Merkle, pronounced: “Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life.” He elaborated, saying: “It lives and breathes on the internet. It lives because it can pay people to keep it alive. It lives because it performs a useful service that people will pay for. It lives because anyone can run a copy of its code anywhere. It lives because all the running copies are constantly talking to each other. It lives because if anyone’s copy is corrupted, it is discarded quickly and without fuss or muss. It lives because it is radically transparent: anyone can see its code and see exactly what it does.”