[Foundation-l] EFF & Bitcoins

[Chris Keating]

> Actually, it is.  I expect Wikipedia to outlast the U.S. Dollar at least in
> some form, or at least stick around as long as literature like "The Oddessy"
> and "The Epic of Gilgamesh" and be a part of human culture longer than the
> civilizations that produced that literature.  Why would it be otherwise?
>  Something like Bitcoin may outlast these other world currencies too.
>

There is a big difference between an encyclopedia and a currency.

Specifically, an encyclopedia can survive in many different ways. If an
archaeologist of the future stumbles across a locked safe in some ruins and
finds it's stuffed full of CD-ROMS containing a Wikipedia backup, they can
recreate Wikipedia. If the safe is full of dollar bills, he can't re-create
the US economy. If it's full of bitcoin software he might be able to
recreate the bitcoin software, but he can't recreate the system of
exchange...