On the podcast this week, Gavin Andresen, project lead of the open source, decentralized, and anonymous virtual currency project Bitcoin, talks about the project. Andresen explains how the peer-to-peer currency functions and talks about what allows Bitcoin to operate without a central bank, why it doesn’t have to rely on intermediaries, and how it overcomes the double-spending problem. He also discusses the project’s implications for government regulation, what attracted him to the project, and Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakomoto’s motivation for creating the currency.
Related Links
- “Online Cash Bitcoin Could Challenge Governments, Banks,” by Jerry Brito
- Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (pdf), by Satoshi Nakomoto
- ClearCoin, Andresen’s startup Bitcoin escrow service
- “How to Start Your Own Private Currency,” The Atlantic
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The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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