As I’ve written previously, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren’t just risky assets for those who own them: risk in the financial sector impacts all of us. For Slate, I wrote about Wyoming’s push to lure blockchain companies into the state, and how an obscure banking law from the 1860s gives small states like Wyoming outsize power in our financial landscape. If you prefer video to text, you can hear me discussing this article with Sam Seder on the show Majority Report on NBC’s streaming service Peacock (I don’t think you need a Peacock account to watch the show from a browser, but you may need a Peacock account to watch…
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Cryptocurrencies are pointless. You should pay attention to them anyway.
I have never been hyped up about Bitcoin, the “blockchain,” or cryptocurrencies. The basic premise behind Bitcoin is that it’s a currency you can send anywhere nearly instantly. The computing power of the millions of bitcoin “miners” is used to solve math problems which create a secure record of every Bitcoin transaction – that record of transactions is called the “ledger.” The miners get paid for keeping the system running by receiving a share of the small amount of new Bitcoins that are being continuously released. Anyone can see the code, and everything is “decentralized” — instead of a single central bank or government holding the power, lots of people participate…
