Congratulations to Tyler Goodspeed who won the Gerschenkron Prize for his PhD (from Harvard University) at the annual Economic History Association conference. His thesis, which examines free banking and the 1772 financial crisis, is available to read here. Tyler presented a paper at one of our economic history seminars last year.
According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money. George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here . Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.