At the end of February, Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based exchange for bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan after a huge amount of money vanished. In a week or so, the Japanese government issued an official statement that it regarded bitcoin neither as a currency nor as a financial commodity but as a taxable "thing" under Japanese law.
The statement was in response to the anger of Mt. Gox customers, mostly foreigners, who suffered losses or, more correctly, to clarify that the Japanese government was not responsible for the trouble. This was no surprise because bitcoin is not a national currency like the yen. No state has accepted it under a national/international political or economic framework.
Yet, it seems that bitcoin will survive and likely spawn an increasing number of subspecies. Why are people so much charmed by this stranger?