# Matt Levine - The Crypto Story (Highlights) ![rw-book-cover|256](https://readwise-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/static/images/article1.be68295a7e40.png) ## Metadata **Review**:: [readwise.io](https://readwise.io/bookreview/24850518) **Source**:: #from/readwise **Zettel**:: #zettel/fleeting **Status**:: #x **Authors**:: [[Matt Levine]] **Full Title**:: The Crypto Story **Category**:: #articles #readwise/articles **Category Icon**:: 📰 **Highlighted**:: [[2023-02-28]] **Created**:: [[2023-03-04]] ## Highlights ### I Ledgers, Bitcoin, Blockchains #### A. Life in Databases - Saying that modern life is lived in databases means, most of all, that modern life involves a lot of trust. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=5&annotation=G77U3ITL)) ^483907012 #### C. Digital Cash - You can look at some crypto thing and figure out which traditional finance thing it replicates. If you do that, you can learn something about the crypto financial system—you can, for instance, make an informed guess about how the crypto thing might go wrong—but you can also learn something about the traditional financial system: The crypto replication gives you a new insight into the financial original. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=14&annotation=PEDK96T4)) ^483907014 - The list of transactions in that block, in the order in which they’re listed, becomes canonical, part of the official Bitcoin record. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=28&annotation=GYVQTRHB)) ^483907015 ### II What Does It Mean? #### F. Digital Scarcity - Bitcoin do not have numbers, but they do have provenance: You can trace where your Bitcoin came from, back to when they were originally mined. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=86&annotation=NMCFQX5S)) ^483907018 (related:: [[Casey Rodarmor - Ordinal Theory Handbook (Highlights)]]) - If you buy an NFT, what you own is a notation on the blockchain that says you own a pointer to some web server. On that web server there’s probably a picture of a monkey, but that’s none of the blockchain’s business. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=87&annotation=3938S99Q)) ^483907019 ### IV Trust, Money, Community #### A. Trust - Crypto, in its origins, was about abandoning the system of social trust that’s been built up over centuries and replacing it with cryptographic proof. And then it got going and rebuilt systems of trust all over again. What a nice vote of confidence in the idea of trust. ([View Highlight](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/MSNS8N99?page=145&annotation=SSK745NM)) ^483907022