Tuesday Talk - January 29, 2019

Bitcoin, Blockchains and the Nature of Money

Speaker: David Beim, Professor Emeritus, Finance and Economics, Columbia Business School

What exactly are Bitcoins? Are they some kind of scam? What do they accomplish that ordinary financial transactions don't? What is a Blockchain and how does it work? Professor Emeritus David Beim took some time to demystify this mystifying subject and also take some time to reflect on the nature of money. With the U.S. dollar such a universally used currency, why would we need another? Is Bitcoin in fact a kind of money? Or is it more like a speculative instrument? Is it really safe or in fact very risky?