What if the price of Bitcoin is the least interesting thing about it?

Over the summer, I reviewed Steven Johnson’s book about innovation, called The Invention of Air. Johnson shows us how a simple insight by one of the least technically gifted scientists in history led to a massive chain reaction of human understanding about the world we live in and how it truly works.

If you missed my synopsis, it’s here.

Anyway, Johnson dropped a monster article about Bitcoin and the Blockchain this week for New York Times Magazine and he makes the point that the daily price swings of coins may turn out to be the least interesting thing about it. This is a line of thinking I’ve been pursuing all winter (see: A Twist).

What if the return of an open-protocol internet (think email, GPS, URLs, etc) is the true promise of the blockchain? What if the ability to affirm who we are as human beings is wrested away from Facebook and the the passport issuers of countries around the world thanks to open-source technology and the peer-to-peer network? These are big questions, and worth spending the time to consider?

I send you there now, you really can’t afford to miss this:

Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble (NYT Magazine)