17th-century London had a thriving token economy with over 4,000 unique tokens circulating as a substitute for money, but it didn’t last. Most of them are buried in the muddy banks of the Thames, and their demise might give a clue as to the future of many of their 21st-century crypto token counterparts.
Everyone knows of Frankenstein, the story of an experiment to cobble together a super-human from remnant parts of corpses, that goes horribly wrong. Governments are trying something similar right now with money – called CBDCs – and the results could be just as ugly and out of control as Frankenstein’s monster.
Money is changing. Governments are waging wars on cash and crypto, citing issues around anonymity and crime, but is there a more sinister reason?
