While bitcoin and blockchain may sound like something from science fiction, they have become powerful tools to help us rethink banking and finance. What began as a cypherpunk vision has become a viable model of currency and exchange for everyone with access to a Smartphone, from the unbanked in Afghanistan to the urban hipster in New York City.

Eager to learn more about where bitcoin and blockchain technology has come from and where it is headed, co-authors Michael J. Casey and Paul Vigna researched and wrote the bestselling book, The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and the Blockchain are Challenging the Global Economic Order. In this interview, Michael J. Casey, Senior Advisor to the Digital Currency Initiative at the Media Lab at MIT and former global finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal, shares what they learned and why we should care.

In this episode, we talk about:

Connections to science fiction, cryptography, and cypherpunks
The blockchain and bitcoin origin story
What it means to decentralize the banking system
The mystery of Satoshi Nakamoto
Trust and the huge role it plays in launching a new currency
How it all started when someone bought a pizza
What bitcoin and blockchain mean for us as customers and as business owners
How blockchain and bitcoin can upend industries from medicine to music
What this tech means for the poor and unbanked
How mobile tech, bitcoin, and blockchain are empowering millions
Ways Wall Street is already co-opting ledger tech for its own purposes
How this tech will govern the economy of the future

Episode Links

@mikejcasey

http://www.michaeljcasey.com/

Satoshi Nakamoto

Cypherpunk

Cryptography

Michel Foucault

Hyperinflation

Deflation

Casa de cambio

Laszlo

Ripple

Ethereum

MIT

CM 036: Michael Casey on Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Our Economic Future

Curious Minds at Work