Crypto Global

Bitcoin - Eine neue Weltordnung? | Sternstunde Philosophie | SRF Kultur

Feb 22, 2022

The New World Order is a digital world of data. Data is power and the new currency of the world.

The point has been reached where anyone with a smartphone or computer has the same access to data as the largest corporation or most powerful government. Peer-to-peer connectivity undermines the very need for a vertical hierarchy that describes the basis of the "Old World Order". The new imperative for peer-to-peer connectivity is to create trust through technology without having to trust individual parties. This technology for secure and trusted peer-to-peer connectivity has its origins in the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, whose design was fully specified in Satoshi Nakamoto's 2008 "Bitcoin" white paper.

In the public and political sphere, Bitcoin has been increasingly discussed in recent years. How revolutionary are cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin really and what happens when money no longer circulates in the form of banknotes but in the form of encrypted data? A world without national currencies, without central banks, without exchange rates, without inflation - yes, without financial institutions in the familiar sense? The German publicist and journalist, philosopher Wolfram Eilenberger, explores these questions in the SRF programm "Sternstunden Philosophie" together with his guests, the ETH computer scientist Roger Wattenhofer and the cultural philosopher Ijoma Mangold.

To get you in the mood for this talk show, we have put together a few interesting quotes for you:

Wattenhofer: "The blockchain is one of the most sensational scientific developments of the last 100 years and it will fundamentally change our entire society."

Mangold: "The fact that Bitcoin is so difficult to change is an advantage and a real strength. The other cryptocurrencies, which are vastly different from the whole structure of concepts of Bitcoin, do not have this clumsiness. But that sluggishness is Bitcoin's security and reliability. Bitcoin's protocol cannot be changed."

Wattenhofer: "Here we have this faceless crowd that can now offer you this trust. Maybe even more than this centralized version."

Mangold: "Bitcoin is a threat to an autocratic system. Therefore, countries that live in the spirit of freedom should embrace it (Bitcoin), because it is a medium of freedom in my view. It (Bitcoin) is of course also a challenge for our traditional institutions. (...) What was the separation of church and state in the 15th and 16th centuries, we will now experience, that is my prognosis, as the separation of state and money."

A TV talk about Bitcoin that is really worth seeing. We hope you enjoy watching!