History

Crypto is Modern Alchemy

“Early alchemy was concerned with purifying and perfecting certain materials, such as transmuting base metals like lead into noble metals like gold, creating an elixir of immortality, or creating panaceas to cure any disease.” – Meltem Demirors

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Financial Cryptography in 7 Layers

“Financial Cryptography is substantially complex, requiring skills drawn from diverse and incompatible, or at least, unfriendly, disciplines. Caught between Central Banking and Cryptography, or between accountants and programmers, there is a grave danger that efforts to construct Financial Cryptography systems will simplify or omit critical disciplines.”Ian Grigg

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Bitcoin is a Rally Cry

“It was a plea to all those that valued the fight for liberty and freedom. Outnumbered ten-to-one, Travis responded to a demand for surrender with a cannon shot.” – Parker Lewis

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The Bitcoin Time Traveler

A message from the future… from 2013.  Just one of those memes that made its place in Bitcoin’s cultural history, we read the infamous Reddit post that laid out the bleak, Bitcoin-only future that lies ahead of us.  Can we stop it, before its too late?

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The Island of Stone Money

Does money need some alternative utility? Is there an example of virtual money that could be hundreds of years old?

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More Immutable than Stone

We start today’s show reading a short Twitter thread by @simonlutz21 which sparks a fun discussion about the presence of Proof-of-Work in nature, the awesome utility of immutability, and the power of Bitcoin’s inalterable ledger.

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Bit Gold

There were many precursors to the Bitcoin system, but IMO, none came as close to correctly defining the problem, and solving the key issues of trust as Nick Szabo’s Bit Gold concept. Reading another great piece made available by the Nakamoto Institute, we read and discuss the incredible prescience of Szabo through one of Bitcoin’s forefathers, Bit Gold.

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The Bitcoin Reformation – Part 1

Today we start our journey through the new report from Adamant Capital written by Tuur Demeester on a fascinating parallel between Bitcoin and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. The monopoly being undermined, the technology that catalyzes the paradigm shift, the new economic class, and the new tools of self defense. Can these shed light on our own uncertain future?

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The Bitcoin Reformation – Part 2

Today we conclude the report from Adamant Capital written by Tuur Demeester on a fascinating parallel between Bitcoin and the Protestant Reformation of the 16th and 17th centuries. A plethora of new financial tools and the flight to find security in uncertain times, and the many parallels with the role Bitcoin could play in finding a haven from the over-leveraged, over-regulated, and corrupt IMFS.

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The Bitcoin Reformation

At the end of the 16th century, a rag tag group of rebel intellectuals and entrepreneurs founded a country on some of the least desirable land in Europe—so often flooded that it needed hundreds of miles of moats – while fighting an eighty year long war against the largest empire in the world.

From this struggle and melting pot of ideas emerged the Dutch and British golden ages, innovative economic institutions that changed the world, as well as one of America’s most successful socio-economic experiments: New York City.

This report makes the case that the 21st century emergence of bitcoin, encryption, the internet, and millennials are more than just trends; they herald a wave of change that exhibits similar dynamics as the 16-17th century revolution that took place in Europe.

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