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Craig Warmke (N. Illinois University) on what Bitcoin is, and other philosophical questions (EP.162)

Release Date: 12/28/2020

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More Episodes

Craig Warmke is an assistant professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University. He has written several papers on the subject of Bitcoin, both pertaining to the question of what Bitcoin actually is. We cover Craig's papers (linked below) and explore the role for philosophers in Bitcoin.

How Craig realized there was an opportunity for philosophy in Bitcoin
Other philosophers writing about Bitcoin
Why philosophers don't take Bitcoin seriously
The Bitcoin-related questions where philosophers can weigh in
The risk of epistemic trespassing
Why Satoshi may have been wrong when they defined an electronic coin as a 'chain of digital signatures'
How Satoshi made a critical engineering decision which differentiated Bitcoin from prior e-cash systems
Why units of Bitcoin cannot be tracked over time through the ledger – and why this matters
Why Bitcoin tracks quantities of a substance, rather than discrete, individual units of Bitcoin
Craig's stylized model of Bitcoin
Why Craig describes Bitcoin as 'fictional substance in an ongoing and massively coauthored book'
Why Bitcoin being 'fictional' does not delegitimize it at all
How Craig's model extends to stablecoins
Why Bitcoin's liability-freeness is so important, and distinguishes it from other monetary assets
The practical significance of determining what Bitcoin is
How Craig's analysis helps demystify chain splits
How ETH 2.0 sheds light on the debate over Bitcoin's identity
The greatest threat to Bitcoin
Is Bitcoin the protocol a democratic phenomenon?
Are there knowable facts about what the nature of Bitcoin is?

Referenced in this episode:

Craig Warmke, What is Bitcoin, forthcoming in Inquiry
Craig Warmke, Electronic Coins
George Selgin, Synthetic Commodity Money
Martin Glazier, In Blockchain We Trust?

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