Alex Daley recently stated that "one of the problems with Bitcoin is that it takes us backwards in the transaction chain. Suddenly, you're dealing with something that's much more cash-like. If Target had been hacked, and instead of using credit-cards, what was stolen from them were actually bitcoins, that they have been storing Bitcoin addresses in their systems and those systems were compromised, Target wouldn't just have a PR nightmare in their hands. They would be out of business."

Of course, it needn't be Target. The scenario has played out with a number of exchanges, and is a sword of Damocles hanging over the cryptocurrency space. The recent Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust SEC filing warns that "the Trust’s bitcoins may be subject to loss, damage, theft or restriction on access. There is a risk that part or all of the Trust’s bitcoins could be lost, stolen or destroyed. The Sponsor believes that the Trust’s bitcoins held in the Trust Custody Account will be an appealing target to hackers or malware distributors seeking to destroy, damage or steal the Trust’s bitcoins. Although the Security System’s design includes various elements, such as redundancy, segregation and cold storage, to minimize the risk of loss, damage and theft, neither the Custodian nor the Sponsor can guarantee that the Security System will prevent such loss, damage or theft..."

This needn't be so, once an optional identity layer, modeled after the Internet itself, is provided, as proposed in late August of last year on this mailing list:

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32737796/
http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32742809/

I hope it is apparent that this is the killer app folks have been searching for in vain. Like its Internet analogues, BCIs will not be created overnight and without collaboration - and TNABC is as good a place as any for it.