The fundamental idea behind cryptocurrencies—money created and managed by popular consensus instead of by the government—was imagined some time ago. I excerpted this clip from a 1984 interview with Austrian-British economist and philosopher Frederick Hayek:
I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government. Since we can’t take them violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is – by some sly roundabout way – introduce something that they can’t stop…
