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...

In his recent book, The Curse of Cash, Ken Rogoff makes the case for getting rid of hand-to-hand currency. The argument is relatively straightforward. Cash, according to Rogoff, is largely used to buy and sell illegal goods and services and evade taxes. It also places a lower bound on interest...

We make a distinction between centralized, decentralized, and distributed payment mechanisms. A centralized payment mechanism processes a transaction using a trusted third party. A decentralized payment mechanism processes a transaction between the parties to the transaction. A distributed...

We employ a monetary model with endogenous search and random consumption preferences to consider the extent to which governments can ban bitcoin. We define a ban as a policy whereby government agents refuse to accept bitcoin and mete out punishments to private agents caught using it. After...