Money and Debt and Digital Contracts – Brewster Kahle at Devcon 5

The dreams of cryptocurrencies tend to focus on money and seem to avoid the topic, repercussions, and significance of debt. In fiat currencies, 95% of all money is matched with debt — in other words, debt creates 95% of all money. This talk aims to bring the impact of debt into the Ethereum conversation, specifically focusing on debt with interest. Let’s consider this side of crypto coins and Ethereum in particular since it provides the ability to encode obligations as contracts and therefore can encode debt obligations.