Thursday, May 18, 2017 | 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM
In the space of a few years, Bitcoin has gone from an idea ignored or maligned by almost everyone to an asset with a market cap of more than $12 billion. Venture capital firms, Goldman Sachs, the NYSE and entrepreneurs such as Richard Branson have invested more than $1 billion in companies built on this groundbreaking technology. Bill Gates has even declared it "better than currency."
But can its early promise endure? Or will the next evolution of money be neutered as it goes mainstream? The pioneers of Bitcoin were 21st century outlaws—cryptographers, hackers, Free Staters, ex-cons and drug dealers, teenage futurists and self-taught entrepreneurs—armed with a renegade ideology and a grudge against big government and big banks. Now those same institutions are threatening to co-opt or curtail the impact of digital currency. But the pioneers, some of whom have become millionaires themselves, aren’t going down without a fight.
Join us for an afternoon of provocative discussion with Brian Patrick Eha, journalist and author of a new book about Bitcoin, How Money Got Free. An exciting, behind-the-scenes narrative of the rise and fall and rise of this disruptive technology, his book has been compared to "a fiber-optic cable extending into our uncertain economic future." He will draw on his deep knowledge of Bitcoin's history to discuss how this brilliant invention is shaping the debate around competing ideas of money and liberty, and what that means for the rest of us.
About the Author
Brian Patrick Eha is a former editor at Entrepreneur and a journalist who has spent nearly five years following the rise of Bitcoin. His work has been published by The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Fortune, CNNMoney, American Banker, Outside, Port, Avaunt and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications. He lives in New York City.
Read the Kirkus review of How Money Got Free here.