Are You More Likely to Cheat with Bitcoin?
I recently spoke with a client who wanted to know what could go wrong with bitcoin. We talked about bitcoin and the monetary system (not a risk now, but who knows in the future) as well as black market applications (greenbacks work just as well or better here). The question stuck with me, though. What could go wrong? I remembered attending a session at an IMCA (now the Investments & Wealth Institute) conference with Dan Ariely and something clicked. Ariely’s research suggests that the further we get from money, the higher the likelihood that we will cheat. Check out his TED talk here. He performed an experiment where subjects were given a limited amount of time to complete a number of math problems and would get paid based on the number of problems they completed. Subjects who handed in their papers got an average of 4 problems correct. Lots of…