Battered dark markets look away from Bitcoin

Bitcoin’s early emergence was little short of a libertarian’s dream. It was a new kind of money and it deliberately excluded the disgraced banking institution. It was touted as a public, open-sourced way of paying quickly, cheaply, without ever having to trust anyone.
It would take years before Bitcoin reached the lips of the “mainstream public”. But when it did, Bitcoin became even hipper, with endorsements from the likes of Ashton Kutcher, Lily Allen, ex Spice Girl Mel