Bitcoin and other “cryptocurrencies” have been much in the news lately, in part because of their wild gyrations in value. Michael Lee and Antoine Martin, economists in the New York Fed’s Money and Payment Studies function, have been following cryptocurrencies and agreed to answer some questions about digital money.

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Date: February 8th, 2018

Link: http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2018/02/hey-economist-what-do-cryptocurrencies-have-to-do-with-trust.html

Discussion

1) “With bitcoin there isn’t one designated validator. Instead, everybody in the bitcoin network could be picked, essentially at random, to validate recent transactions.”  Validation is indeed the key and something not focused on at all by most people.  What is validation?

2) Will bitcoin exchanges that are run from places like China survive in the global economy?