Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Finn Brunton (Author), Christopher Ragland (Narrator), Princeton University Press (Publisher)

4.2 48 ratings

See all formats and editions

Amazon Price

New from

Used from

Kindle Edition

"Please retry"

$14.56

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$34.00

$28.03

$26.88

Paperback

"Please retry"

$22.99

$19.45

$16.66

The fascinating untold story of digital cash and its creators - from experiments in the 1970s to the mania over Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin may appear to be a revolutionary form of digital cash without precedent or prehistory. In fact, it is only the best-known recent experiment in a long line of similar efforts going back to the 1970s. But the story behind cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and its blockchain technology has largely been untold - until now. In Digital Cash, Finn Brunton reveals how technological utopians and political radicals created experimental money to bring about their visions of the future: protecting privacy or bringing down governments, preparing for apocalypse or launching a civilization of innovation and abundance that would make its creators immortal.

The incredible story of the pioneers of cryptocurrency takes us from autonomous zones on the high seas to the world’s most valuable dump, from bank runs to idea coupons, from time travelers in a San Francisco bar to the pattern securing every 20-dollar bill, and from marketplaces for dangerous secrets to a tank of frozen heads awaiting revival in the far future. Along the way, Digital Cash explores the hard questions and challenges that these innovators faced: How do we learn to trust and use different kinds of money? What makes digital objects valuable? How does currency prove itself as real to us? What would it take to make a digital equivalent to cash, something that could be exchanged but not copied, created but not forged, and which reveals nothing about its users?

Filled with marvelous characters, stories, and ideas, Digital Cash is an engaging and accessible account of the strange origins and remarkable technologies behind today’s cryptocurrency explosion.

Listening Length

7 hours and 9 minutes
Author

Finn Brunton
Narrator

Christopher Ragland
Audible release date

June 25 2019
Language

English
Publisher

Princeton University Press
ASIN

B07NGQNN2R
Version

Unabridged
Program Type

Audiobook
See all details

Your complimentary audiobook is waiting

Free trial includes 1 credit in your first month good for any title of your choice, yours to keep.
Plus, you can enjoy unlimited listening to The Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts, and audiobooks.
You'll unlock exclusive member-only sales, as well as 30% off your purchases of any additional titles.
After 30 days Audible is $14.95/month + applicable taxes. Renews automatically.

Learn more about membership

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

List Price: $15.75

You Save: $1.97 (13%)

By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company

Related to this topic

Page 1 of 1Start OverPage 1 of 1

Product details

Listening Length	7 hours and 9 minutes
Author	Finn Brunton
Narrator	Christopher Ragland
Audible.ca Release Date	June 25 2019
Publisher	Princeton University Press
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B07NGQNN2R
Best Sellers Rank	#120,256 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #234 in Media Studies (Audible Books & Originals) #422 in Popular Culture Studies (Audible Books & Originals) #532 in Money & Monetary Policy Economics

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

48 global ratings

5 star		53%
4 star		25%
3 star		15%
2 star		3%
1 star		5%

How are ratings calculated?

Top reviews from other countries

Bryan Pfaffenberger

Essential guide to the fascinating history and meaning of digital cash

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 2, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is a superb and beautifully written book about digital cash -- not electronic funds, but cryptocurrency, an electronic currency medium that can prove, certify, and authenticate itself, without exposing the identities of the transacting parties. Author Finn Brunton expertly narrates the struggle to create cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, and does so in understandable language suitable for a general readership. But the book does much more. Noting that all currencies carry with them a vision of the future -- what will my money be worth tomorrow? Five years from now? -- Brunton suggests that a given digital cash system such as Bitcoin amounts to a "cosmogram," an artifact that embodies an envisioned system of social relationships and an anticipated future, as well as the means to bring about that future: a world currency, free from all government control, that would retain its value even as other currencies crashed. To tell the story fully, Brunton traces digital cash's origins to technocrats, cypherpunks, crypto-anarchists, Extropians, libertarians, agorists, and neoliberal economists, most of whom expressed extreme pessimism about the near future... even to the point of freezing their bodies after death, as some Extropians have done, to be awakened only after the Collapse and the formation of the utopia to come. But they'll remain asleep for quite a while longer, based on Brunton's assessment of Bitcoin today: "a wildly volatile vehicle for baseless speculation, a roller coaster of ups and downs driven by a mix of hype, price-fixing, bursts of frenzied panic, and the dream of getting rich without doing much of anything" (p. 204). Still, Bitcoin's underlying technologies will undoubtedly affect tomorrow's currency systems: in describing the blockchain concept, Brunton likens it to a dollar bill that, upon inspection, reveals the note's entire transactional history, including the secret identities of all who exchanged it. As Brunton observes, books will be written about future cryptocurrencies, surely, but Digital Cash does an excellent job of explain where we are today, and why.

4 people found this helpful

Göran

Eloquently phrased personal opinions. Nothing more.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 26, 2022

Verified Purchase

It is sad that this kind of journalism proliferates today. Mixing every other personal opinion with factual nuggets does not make a story factual or true.

Should have stuck to history.

3 people found this helpful

Luckycat

An excellent, excellent book!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 23, 2020

Verified Purchase

This book is fascinating. It clearly describes the people (e.g., David Chaum, Adam Back, Hal Finney and Wei Dai) and products (e.g., E-cash, hashcash and b-money) that have brought us to where we are today. It reminds us that the way the world is when we were born is not necessarily the best world possible. It is full of mind-expanding concepts: like (as Hal Finney pointed out in 2002) money is "fundamentally a form of information," "money is not about atoms, it is about bits," and the view that money is based on material goods is "old-fashioned." Finn Brunton knocked it out of the park.

See all reviews

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract and engage customers	Amazon Business Everything for your business	Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands

Warehouse Deals Open-Box Discounts	Whole Foods Market We Believe in Real Food	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust	Blink Smart Security for Every Home

Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Included with free trial $0.00$0.00

Buy with 1-Click $13.78$13.78

Related to this topic

Product details

Customer reviews

Top reviews from Canada

Top reviews from other countries

Included with free trial

$0.00

Buy with 1-Click

$13.78