Sometimes we need to start over again. But even in this connected world, is it possible to reboot the way we pay? To change something that has barely changed in hundreds of years? Maybe.

It seems like every week we learn of a new way to pay for things online, as if credit cards and physical cash weren’t good enough. Whether it’s an alternative (and I use the word alternative loosely, because only one phone has the damn thing) to credit cards, like Google Wallet, or online services like PayPal acting as the middleman for safe, online payments, there is a thirst for a modern way to pay for things.

The problem, though, is none of these systems, in my opinion, truly escape the idea of what money is right now. They make it easier, sure, but nothing fundamentally changes money for to better so it can fit into the globally connected world we live in. And Facebook Credits don’t count. All these systems have rules, restrictions, and in the end, are only incremental changes to money. They never make the fundamental problems with money better.

We live in a world here I can talk to someone on the other side of the globe, face-to-face, at any time of the day, with little or no delay. I can troll Microsoft fans in the comfort of my own home (or as I like to call it, have a discussion with them), and, yet, money is still converted. It’s still a physical object trying to be made digital. And this is one of the big barriers for online payments or new systems like Google Wallet: they just build upon what we already have. And I think that, for such a different world, there must be a better solution, one that doesn’t require a bank account to buy things online. Something that fundamentally lives online. Which is where the BitCoin system comes in.