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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Why Bitcoin Now: The History of Digital Currency - Ep.185 01:21:40 Share

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