A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away we wrote a series of articles arguing that bitcoin is not money and is not sound. Bitcoin was skyrocketing at the time, as we wrote most of them between July 30 and Oct 1 last year. Back in those halcyon days, volatility was deemed to be a feature. That is, volatility in the upward direction was loved by everyone who said that bitcoin is money, in their desire to make money. In...
Read More »The Bank of England and its Contemporaries
In the Journal of Economic Literature, William Roberds reviews Christine Desan’s “Making Money: Coin, Currency, and the Coming of Capitalism” and he provides his own perspective on European monetary history. … the transition of the Bank of England’s notes from the status of experimental debt securities (in 1694) to “as good as gold” (1833) required more than a century of legal accommodation and business comfort with their use. Desan emphasizes England’s traditions of nominalism (as...
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