In this episode I talk with Brett Scott, author of The Heretic’s Guide to Global Finance and Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets.
He also runs the substack Altered States of Monetary Consciousness.
Brett does a lot of work supporting the protection of physical cash, and I reached out to him about an article he wrote “The War On Informality” which explores the implication of financial surveillance by credit cards and private banks.
This is a thought-provoking episode. We explore the Commodity Theory of Money vs Credit Theory of Money, power dynamics, the importance of cash, and more. Brett offers some interesting critiques of certain Bitcoin narratives and provides some alternative frameworks for looking at how money works.
In particular the Credit Theory of Money sent me down some rabbit holes thinking about how money comes into being as a future obligation and how this theory would map on to Bitcoin, which has cemented my thoughts around the critical role of Bitcoin mining and energy use where the underlying Bitcoin and electrical power are both required to be spent to participate in the network (I hope to explore this in future episodes).
Please have a listen and make up your own mind. Brett has been involved in the Bitcoin world for a long time and I think his arguments and critiques are worth interrogating.
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Links:
Brett Scott on X - https://twitter.com/Suitpossum
Altered States of Monetary Consciousness (Substack) - https://www.asomo.co/
The Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17368973-the-heretic-s-guide-to-global-finance
Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59314672-cloudmoney
MICA framework - https://www.coindesk.com/learn/mica-eus-comprehensive-new-crypto-regulation-explained/
The War on Informality Article - https://brettscott.substack.com/p/the-war-on-informality
The Landscape of Money: Visualizing Crypto Invasions, Stablecoins & CBDCs amidst the War on Cash - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK1DZlWaiLY
I talk with Kieran Nolan and Chris Pollard, two Bitcoiners based in Melbourne, Australia. Kieran Nolan is a Bitcoin educator. He is the technology specialist at a primary school in Australia, teaching Bitcoin and STEM topics, including getting Andreas Antonopoulos to do a video lesson with his students Kieran is also part of the theschoolofbitcoin.com, blockchain academy international, and other projects. Chris Pollard join us a little bit later on the episode and is active in helping organise the Bitcoin meetups in Melbourne, running bitcoinonly.store, as well leading a new project to create a permanent bitcoin space: unspent.space. With both my guests I was blown away by the range of impactful projects they are working on.
Today I talk with Simon and Jason, 2 British Bitcoiners who are involved in organising meetups and events throughout the UK, as well as promoting merchant adoption of Bitcoin. Simon also known as @hodlsolo, is part of the LaserEyesCards project, is the co-founder of Bridge2Bitcoin, and organises the Northhamptonshire Bitcoin meetup. Jason is the organiser of the Suffolk Bitcoin meetup.
I talk with Brad Henderson, a Power System Engineer and Head of Engineering and Design at ElectroNet, a New Zealand-owned consultancy firm. Brad share some exciting details about a new Bitcoin mining facility that his firm has been involved with on the West Coast of New Zealand. We discuss what energy sovereignty might mean for New Zealand, including the importance of electrifying the economy and how Bitcoin mining and solar power may help create energy abundance.
Today I talk with Paul from Bitkiwi who are organising New Zealand’s premiere Bitcoin meetups. This episodes roams across a wide range of topics, from politics and nostalgia for the old days, to the importance and value of real-life Bitcoin meetups.
In this episode I talk with Faris Mali about his journey growing up in the Middle East and North Africa, working in the academic world in Australia, and his upcoming book ‘Bitcoin Begins, beginner's guide to money, currency and Bitcoin’. Faris is the co-host of The Bitcoin Basics Podcast, based out of Nelson, New Zealand and he also runs a company providing info about Bitcoin risk mitigation.