Hal Finney, one of the early developers of the bitcoin protocol, is often touted as one of the creators of the technology due to the optimizations to elliptic curve cryptography he made alongside Satoshi Nakamoto in the earliest days of its existence. As the first transaction recipient of bitcoin, Finney was integral to bitcoin’s operational takeoff, and can justly be described as one of its most crucial creators. In much the same way that Hal Finney is credited with being a core contributor to the implementation of bitcoin, could John Nash, someone who had been at the forefront of mathematical and economic thought into the prospect of ‘ideal money‘, be justly attributed credit for the formation of the electronic cash system of cryptocurrency?
The special commodity or medium that we call money has a long and interesting history. And since we are so dependent on our use of it and so much controlled and motivated by the wish to have more of it or not to lose what we have we may become irrational in thinking about it and fail to be able to reason about it like a bout of technology, such as a radio, to be used more or less efficiently.
– John Nash
Ideal Money
Nash described the concept of ideal money as having the function of a standard of measurement and, thus, it should become comparable to the watt, the hour or a degree of temperature.
He asserted an ideal form of money should provide a viable solution to the Triffin Dilemma – it should serve both short-term domestic and international long-term objectives where central banking money has utterly failed (the average lifespan of a fiat currency is 27 years).
Disinflationary Money Supply
Asymptotically ideal money focuses on the fluctuations and long-term perceived value of money, where the ideal inflation rate is as close to zero without being negative (deflation). Currently this accurately describes the economic nature of bitcoin, as it is a disinflationary money supply by design – that is, it is decreasing in its inflationary nature by halving the block reward at predetermined intervals. The inflation rate of bitcoin asymptotically approaches zero as we inch closer to the currency limit of 21 million units.
Nash described this ideal of money as something which could solve the Triffin Dilemma and provide a global savings outlet for people who would otherwise be subject to ‘bad money’, or money expected to lose value over time under conditions of inflation.
Nash described a nonpolitical value standard for comparisons of value, asserting that an industrial consumption price index could be “appropriately readjusted depending on how patterns of international trade would actually evolve”. Moreover, Nash described how actors that were in control of this standard could corrupt this continuity, yet the probability of damages through corruption would be as small as politicians who alter the measurements of meters and kilometers.
Bitcoin Consumption Index
Within the bitcoin network, the mining difficulty index, which can be viewed as a type of consumption index, is intelligently adjusted based on a regulatory algorithm which assigns the difficulty at a rate where new blocks are mined every 10 minutes, on average. Further, authorities of the bitcoin network (51% mining pools) could corrupt the standard of non-double spending, yet doing so would be an attempt to alter the calculation of transactions while not honoring their own incentive to remain an honest mining participant. The bitcoin whitepaper itself describes how such an authority would choose to ensure the integrity of this transaction standard as doing otherwise would devalue their own authority position in the mining network.
The nonpolitical industrial consumption price index Nash described in his 2002 paper is represented by the bitcoin network’s intelligent design towards regulating mining consumption power and readjusting the difficulty and block rewards accordingly.
Given that the bitcoin network is inherently regulated by an algorithm which adjusts the consumption index to an average of 10 minutes, could it be argued that the standard of measurement is time itself?
Is Bitcoin Nash’s Ideal Money?
Nash’s work on ideal money is represented in the most fundamental aspects of bitcoin’s economic nature. His insights into a form of money which can be used as a true measuring tool and one which solves the Triffin Dilemma by serving as a viable domestic and international money supply, have made bitcoin into what it is today – a practical opportunity to achieve an international standard of ideal money.
Is bitcoin the closest thing we have thus far seen to the concept of ideal money? John Nash’s work into the field did indeed make its way into the invention of bitcoin. Although he was very likely never behind the guise of Satoshi Nakamoto, his work lives on in the monetary policies built into the bitcoin protocol.