15/11/2024 –, Nakamoto Stage
This talk will examine the properties that Bitcoin shares with other forms of money that have been accepted throughout recent human history. The focus will be on understanding the trade-offs made by different forms of money and what implications that might have in the long term for Bitcoin adoption.
People have used various forms of money throughout history. While there has never been a universal consensus about what exactly "money" is in the abstract, we do have imperfect historical implementations of monetary systems which attempt to abstract trade and social credit mechanisms in the form of tokens and notes. By looking at these various real world implementations of money, we can try to understand the needs and goals of the people using them. Finally, we will examine how Bitcoin compares to these historic monetary systems and in what ways it competes with them.
I spent a lot of time working with and thinking about Bitcoin over the last decade. I'm especially interested in the philosophical and political implications of digital respresentations of credit and value.