Philosophy of Bitcoin

Vijay Boyapati and Koen Swinkels discuss how the emergence of Bitcoin has revealed some serious problems in the traditional Austrian account of the origins and nature of money. Topics include: how Menger and the Austrians failed to understand the bubbliness of money; how speculation rather than use as a medium of exchange is what bootstraps bitcoin; what bitcoin can or cannot tell us about the origins of money; how money is actually better off without 'intrinsic value'; how the success of gold shows that bitcoin can have a future; how bitcoin isn't quite money yet and what this means; and much much more.