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Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

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Ideas for an Alternative Monetary Future

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About Will Luther
William J. Luther is an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, an assistant professor of economics at Florida Atlantic University, and director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project. Luther’s research focuses primarily on questions of currency acceptance and the role governments play in determining commonly accepted media of exchange. He has published articles in leading scholarly journals, including Economic Inquiry, Public Choice, Journal of Institutional Economics, and Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance. His popular works have appeared in The Economist, Forbes, and U.S. News & World Report.

An internationally renowned expert on cryptocurrencies, Luther’s research has been cited by major media outlets, including NPR, VICE News, Washington Examiner, The Christian Science Monitor, and New Scientist.

Luther earned his MA and PhD in Economics at George Mason University and his BA in Economics at Capital University.
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Where have all the coins gone?
Commodity Money, Economic History, Fiat Money, Money & Politics, News

Where Have All the Coins Gone?

Will Luther/July 10, 2020June 19, 2022 /13 Comments

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert,” the economist Milton Friedman once quipped, “in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.” The U.S. Mint, to its credit, had a much longer run. The Federal Reserve, which purchases coins from the Mint…

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bitcoin, cryptocurrency, ICO, ban, government regulation
Digital Money, Money & Politics, News

Can the Government Destroy Bitcoin?

Will Luther/October 5, 2017June 19, 2022 /64 Comments

China-based cryptocurrency exchange BTCC suspended all domestic trading in yuan last weekend. The decision came on the heels of a September 5 statement from regulatory authorities in China, which required all domestic cryptocurrency exchanges publish closing announcements, stop registering new users, and establish a schedule to cease…

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Blockchain, cryptocurrency ,Fedcoin, FinTech, NuBit
Digital Money, Inflation & Deflation

Theoretical Fedcoin, Meet Operational NuBits

Will Luther/December 28, 2015June 19, 2022 /5 Comments

In a recent blog post, St. Louis Fed Vice President David Andolfatto suggests that central banks “consider offering digital money services (possibly even a cryptocurrency) at the retail and wholesale level.”  His reasoning is straightforward.  Bitcoin, he observes, offers a host of benefits, most of which relate…

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bitcoin, silk road, thaler, fama, overstock
Digital Money, Financial Markets, News

Is Bitcoin Only Valuable to Crooks and Tax Cheats?

Will Luther/November 14, 2015June 19, 2022 /5 Comments

It isn’t every day that University of Chicago economists Eugene Fama and Richard Thaler see eye to eye.  Fama, who won the Nobel Prize in 2013, is one of the best known proponents of the efficient market hypothesis.  Thaler, in contrast, champions behavioral economics.  Indeed, Thaler spends…

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Recent Posts

  • The Menace of Fiscal Inflation
  • Monetary Progress
  • Paul Krugman and the "Ersatz" Theory of Private Currencies
  • The New Deal and Recovery, Part 18: The Recovery So Far
  • Should the Fed Devalue Our Currency to Implement Negative Interest Rates?
  • Populism and the Future of the Fed: A New Book from Cato’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives
  • Revising the Bank Secrecy Act to Protect Privacy and Deter Criminals (CMFA Working Paper No.007)

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  • Max Hydrogen on The Menace of Fiscal Inflation

About Us

Welcome to Alt-M, a community devoted to exploring and promoting ideas for an alternative monetary future. Our goal is to reveal the shortcomings of today’s centralized, bureaucratic, and discretionary monetary arrangements, and to bring serious consideration of real alternatives to the center stage of current monetary and financial reform debates.

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