Will Donald Trump really make the US 'crypto-capital' of the world'?

The President Elect will find his two instincts pulling in opposite directions

Money is one of those strange ideas: the more you think about it, the stranger it gets. People assume it is notes or coins, but money can be almost anything if enough people believe in it. Shells, rare metals, clay tablets and even cigarettes have all been used as currency at one time or another. Even the mighty dollar has no inherent value beyond society’s collective belief that it has. Money is one giant myth that we all buy into.

Forget about the wild price bubbles and the Lamborghinis, Bitcoin’s greatest contribution has been to get millions of ordinary people to think carefully about money: what is it, who controls it, and why?

That was always the purpose. Bitcoin is a technology designed to disrupt the entire way the global money system works: an antidote to the central banks and politicians who control the money supply. The complicated terminology about ‘blockchains’ and ‘hashrates’ obscures a simple idea. It’s a global digital currency controlled by no single person, with a fixed total supply, and an automated minting schedule. It was designed by the mysterious founder Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 because he (or she) hated that bankers and governments could manipulate their control over the money supply to their own ends. This usually meant turning on the printing machines and devaluing the wealth of ordinary people.

Bitcoin, and its near infinite spin-offs, have been growing in popularity and value ever since, driven by both idealists and (mostly) get-rich-quick speculators and hype. It is thought that around 40 per cent of Americans own crypto coins of one type or another, but it finally came of age with Donald Trump’s stunning second election victory. Bitcoin has returned to its roots. It’s political again.