I was musing today over the three wise men who followed the new star to a barnyard and gave, not the parents, but the newborn, gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And what the child later would have thought had they given gifts of bitcoins, samples of the latest fragrances and a tree to plant and save the planet. I wonder.

Typically, the gifts we give and receive are enmeshed in feelings, imagination and hope. As a child bitcoins, unseen as they are, wouldn’t have evoked any feelings o...