This guy's experience reads like something out of a William Gibson novel. If BTC takes off, I wouldn't be surprised if the world got several orders of magnitude nastier, malware-wise. If the value of breaking into someone's machine is not merely the computer's connectivity or, worse, information to enable identity theft but actual, untraceable value-holding currency, you know the incentive to compromise computers is going to skyrocket.
Funny. More seriously, this reminds me of the difference in deterrence value between Lojack and The Club:
Lojack makes it little less likely that any particular car will get stolen but increases the likelihood that a car thief will be caught.
The Club basically says, "Go steal someone else's car."
"Driver carries no cash" is well intentioned but says, "Go rob someone who does have cash." It has a local deterrent value perhaps, but is of limited value as a deterrent from robbing people who drive delivery trucks.
All of this gets me wondering? Does UPS still do COD? And if so, do they accept cash?
Are we prepared to live in that world?