On this “Speaking of Bitcoin” episode, join hosts Adam B. Levine, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy, and Jonathan Mohan for a look at the past, present and future of global reserve currencies
In the beginning there was the global reserve currency (U.S. dollars,) national currencies like the Japanese Yen, alternative currencies like Ithaca hours and just one cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
But what a difference a decade can make, today there are thousands of cryptocurrencies, many created by enthusiasts who have ideas on how to make something even better than Bitcoin, but also currencies that use some of the technology that makes Bitcoin so powerful, but which pairs it with the authority of a national government, like the Digital Yuan in China, the Digital Euro out of Brussels, or even a globe-spanning corporation with billions of customers like the Libra, backed by Facebook.
In this emerging picture, is bitcoin still interesting? First attempts at new technologies, even when successful at introducing a powerful new idea, are often not the ones which eventually succeeds in changing everything. And importantly, as the world changes and we get closer to something other than the dollar standard, where does bitcoin fit?