Bitcoin and the Origin of Money with Special Guest Konrad Graf
Money is not an invention of the state. It is not the product of a legislative act. Even the sanction of political authority is not necessary for its existence.
– Carl Menger
Money is an indispensable tool for economic calculation, but the way in which a money originates is not always properly understood. Through the works of Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, and other Austrian economists, a comprehensive theory was formulated that took into account the nature of subjective values.
Today, Bitcoin perplexes and bewilders monetary theorists because of its radical departure from our standard conceptions of money. But instead of forcing us to abandon the Misesian approach to money, Bitcoin has helped us sharpen our analytical knives and gain a more abstract, praxeological answer to the questions of what money is and how it originates.
Join the Mises Circle and special guest Konrad S. Graf to discuss how Bitcoin pushes Austrian monetary theory into the 21st century. Graf has written numerous articles on Bitcoin monetary theory as well as Austrian legal theory.
Suggested reading: Konrad Graf’s “Bitcoins, the regression theorem, and that curious but unthreatening empirical world” (http://konradsgraf.com/blog1/2013/2/27/in-depth-bitcoins-the-regression-theorem-and-that-curious-bu.html)
When: Monday, September 23rd at 7pm CDT
Where: Garrison 2.112
Can’t join us in person? Tune in to the Google+ Hangout.
The Mises Circle is proceeding ever more boldly and electronically. Help us maintain our online presence, through our website and audio/visuals, by donating Bitcoin today.
Nothing new in that Graf article. Same ole mistake I’ve seen dozens of times. He fails to understand the significance of sheer numbers with respect to this topic.
To be a medium of exchange one time, such as swapping a horse for a cow in order to swap the cow for a piano, makes the cow a medium of exchange in that set of transactions. But that is not what is meant by a medium of exchange that has a chance to turn into money. A one-off event is not meaningful here.
Similarly, for an object to have the intrinsic value Mises is talking about in the regression theorem, it isn’t enough for one person to like it and want it. One person liking, say, some garage band’s awful sounding CD will not make that CD satisfy the regression theorem. Same thing with a few nerds who will pay to have a bitcoin icon on their computer to brag about.
Why is this so? The answer is already at your disposal right here: https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/21/one-more-detail-about-bitcoin/
And here: https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/bitcoin-and-the-numbers-game/ [in the part that begins with a 2.]
About the numbers, how many people are using bitcoin as a medium of exchange, we have: https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/four-facts-that-destroy-bitcoin/
And here: http://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/07/bitcoin-and-the-numbers-game-part-2-in-which-we-shew-that-bitcoin-has-never-not-even-once-been-used-as-a-medium-of-exchange/
To slake your thirst for knowledge, here’s the link to most of my articles about bitcoin: https://smilingdavesblog.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/bitcoin-all-in-one-place/
The Mises.org website is going to be very red faced someday, ignoring
Peter Schiff and Doug Casey and me, who see bitcoin for the scam it is.
I think that the news in the 5 months since you posted this should be enough to disprove you.
You would have loved tulip mania, beanie babies, ithaca hours, ponzi schemes, bernie maddoffs, and all the bubbles, cons, and manias that lasted five months.