I just started, and am already thoroughly enjoying, [amazon_link id=”0007225741″ target=”_blank” ]The Information[/amazon_link] by James Gleick (yes, I’m late to this 2011 book).

[amazon_image id=”0007225741″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood[/amazon_image]

This sentence in the intro struck a chord:

“Economics is recognizing itself as an information science, now that money itself is completing a developmental arc from matter to bits, stored in computer memory and magnetic strips.”

This was written before the Bitcoin mania, of course. A few earlier writers had made a similar point – David Graeber’s [amazon_link id=”1612191819″ target=”_blank” ]Debt [/amazon_link]depicts credit as social relations, while the idea is in the very title of Keith Hart’s [amazon_link id=”1861972083″ target=”_blank” ]The Memory Bank[/amazon_link] (2001). And digital money guru Dave Birch has been onto this point for years.

[amazon_image id=”1861972083″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Memory Bank: Money in an Unequal World[/amazon_image]