Bitcoin is at a crossroads. One route will make it as easy to use as a debit card, the other ends in obscurity. Can its users agree on its future?

Time to ring the changes Reuters/David Gray

FOR the better part of a decade, bitcoin has been touted as the currency of the future, but for most people it has remained just that – a future not current currency. Technical problems have stymied its mainstream adoption.

But now, an elegant fix to one of bitcoin’s most intractable problems could clear the way, potentially making bitcoin as easy to use as the debit card in your wallet today.

If, that is, bitcoin’s decentralised network of users agree that this is a good idea. The community is at war with itself: some want it to remain a …