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

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 … 

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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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• Source: https://unchainedpodcast.com/why-bitcoin-now-the-history-of-digital-currency/