We maintain that the crypto-currency bitcoin is a practical application of what is termed “memory” in the monetary economics literature. After reviewing the theoretical literature on money and memory, we offer a brief overview of the bitcoin protocol and argue that, like memory, bitcoin...

In just six years, bitcoin has gone from a relatively obscure piece of code to an internationally recognized form of payment. Yet, opinions about bitcoin’s future are mixed. After considering the major factors affecting bitcoin’s future use, I offer some modest predictions. In brief, I...

The recent proliferation of bitcoin has been a boon for users but might pose problems for governments. Indeed, some governments have already taken steps to ban or discourage the use of bitcoin. In a model with endogenous matching and random consumption preferences, we find multiple monetary...

At present, bitcoin is held mostly as a speculative vehicle, little used to pay for goods and services. Its value has been unstable, which impedes bitcoin’s wider use as a payment medium. We explain why the value of bitcoin has been so unstable. Then, we discuss entrepreneurial efforts that...

In The Curse of Cash, Kenneth Rogoff lists reductions in criminal activity and tax evasion among the primary benefits of eliminating cash. We maintain that, to the extent that individuals are interested in purchasing illicit goods and services or evading taxes, eliminating cash will encourage...

The emergence of bitcoin poses an important question for monetary theorists: can bitcoin compete with or even replace existing fiat monies? To answer this question, one must be able to determine what gives intrinsically useless monies their value, what determines the coexistence of alternative...