Home - jalToorey/IdealMoney GitHub Wiki

Intro

This is the github wiki that I will be dedicating to organizing John Nash's works as related to his proposal/works Ideal Money as well as my explanation of it and synthesis with Bitcoin.

The writings under the "Ideal Money Versions" heading are all John Nash's versions of it, mostly from his Princeton University Homepage (there are many revisions... I tried to capture the main DISTINCT versions), and the writings under two "The Nashian Orientation of Bitcoin" series are my extension and synthesis of his work with Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto, FA Hayek, Nick Szabo, and others etc).

All of the essays are meant to be well-suited/structured for use/study with llms/ai (such as chatGTP and Grok etc).

Outline - The Nashian Orientation of Bitcoin

(This is the shorter 6 part version/series whereas the "enumerated series" (see sidebar) is much more dense and exhaustive)

Introduction to Ideal Money and the Value Thereof

This introduction begins to define what an Ideal Money scenario refers to which is the (re-)levation of a politically held global standard for money comparison. Furthermore, using Nick Szabo's formalization of Adam Smith, it introduces the formalization of the efficiency gains from such a global setting as well as highlights the natural and favorable effects of a global money standard on long term contract formation.

The ICPI and Bitcoin as an Ideal Money Basis

This writing explains the purpose of invoking the concept of what Nash calls the ICPI and dispels the misconceptions of it perpetuated by those notably including Adam Back, George Selgin, and Saifedean Ammous. The concept of the ICPI as an extension of a gold standard helps us philosophically paint the concept of a vector of quality for money that is otherwise difficulty to describe or point to in dialogue. It is from this philosophical view that we are able to derive an implementable path to Ideal Money.

Hal Finney's Theory of Bitcoin Backed Banks

This writing explores the reference Hal Finney made to George Selgin which lead Finney to his theory of Bitcoin Backed Banks. It also introduces new lexicon into the crypto-community in order for people to better understand and reference Hal's extension of Selgin's work. This framework is helpful for not only understanding the nature of the evolving digital money realm that Satoshi birthed but also for understanding how digital money might affect our legacy currency systems. It is often thought that the lightning network innovation precludes the theory of bitcoin backed banks-this writing argues otherwise.

The Theory of Bitcoin Backed Central Banks

This writing explores the early limitations implicit in bitcoin's code and why they might exist. It then extends the theory of bitcoin backed banks to observations on how central banking might evolve in a world where bitcoin plays a significant high value settlement role in the global economy.

The Nashian Orientation of Bitcoin: A Theory of Bitcoin and Money

This writing extends Nick Szabo's theory of 'collectibles' and their quality of 'unforgeable costliness' and compares this quality of a money to the vector of quality Nash highlights with his ICPI concept. From this viewpoint and comparison we can understand how bitcoin might be ideally suited to play the role of quality comparator for existing major currencies.

Ergo, Bitcoin is Nash's Ideal Money

In conclusion, this writing extends Nick Szabo's bitgold concept to Satoshi's bitgold implementation through a basic process control solution and shows how this solution and implementation match the formal definition of Nash's (asymptotically) Ideal Money.