A special issue of the Journal of Financial Stability, edited by George Selgin, has been published which examines past and present alternatives to the Federal Reserve system. Notable contributions to the the special issue include Matthew Jaremski (on clearinghouses as credit regulators), Hugh Rockoff (on Sprague and the founding of the Fed), Lawrence H. White (on returning to a commodity standard), Scott Sumner (on Nominal GDP futures targeting) and Gerald Dwyer (on Bitcoin).
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.