Is Bitcoin the Only Cryptocurrency in the Town? Economics of Cryptocurrency and Friedrich A.Hayek

This paper overviews the entire landscape of Bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has not emerged out of cryptocurrency competition, but rather became a dominant currency as the first broad market based cryptocurrency. But there are more than a hundred of cryptocurrencies in the market, and some are catching up to Bitcoin. This is a healthy sign of currency competition la Hayek. Through this competition new technological and security innovations may emerge. In this paper, we point out potential problems with Bitcoin and propose some ideas for an alternative cryptocurrency.