Unchained

Why Bitcoin Now: The History of Digital Currency - Ep.185

08.11.2020 - By Laura ShinPlay

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Aaron van Wirdum is the technical editor at Bitcoin Magazine. Finn Brunton is the author of “Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency.” In this episode, they tackle the history of digital currency. Topics include:

the motivations behind the earliest attempts to create digital currencies, and who was behind those attempts

the Extropian philosophy and how digital currency was born out of it

how the cypherpunks came together and eventually began implementing tools that would lead to the creation of digital currencies

the problems faced during the development of digital money, from double-spending to privacy, centralization, and spam

the development of a public key protocol and why it was so significant

the characteristics of earlier forms of digital currency like e-cash, hashcash, b-money, and bit gold, as well as their differences

the original purpose of proof-of-work and how it was developed

Hal Finney’s essential contributions to the creation of earlier digital currencies, and later, Bitcoin

previous implementations of blockchain and how Bitcoin came to reinvent and utilize it

which previous digital currencies come closest to Bitcoin

and who they think Satoshi Nakamoto is … 

 

Thank you to our sponsors! 

Crypto.com: https://crypto.com

 

Episode links: 

Aaron Van Wirdum: https://twitter.com/AaronvanW

Finn Brunton: http://finnb.net

 

Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691179490/digital-cash

 

Aaron's Bitcoin magazine series on the early days of digital currency: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-how-david-chaums-ecash-spawned-cypherpunk-dream

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-hashcash-or-how-adam-back-designed-bitcoins-motor-block

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-if-bitcoin-had-first-draft-wei-dais-b-money-was-it

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/genesis-files-bit-gold-szabo-was-inches-away-inventing-bitcoin

 

Aaron on What Bitcoin Did discussing the stories: https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-3-bitcoins-pre-history-and-the-cypherpunks-with-aaron-van-wirdum 

Breaker Mag Interview with Finn Brunton about his book: https://breakermag.com/new-book-reveals-cryptos-radical-origins/

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