Links to references, sources and background reading.

• Slide 4:
  • Cryptography and Paranoia in Anguilla (New York Times, 14 March 1997)
  • Plotting Away in Margaritaville  (Wired magazine, July 1997)
  • Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System (original paper, posted online 1 November 2008)
  • Bitcoin v0.1 released (9 January 2009)
• Slide 5:
  • Decentralised Currencies Are Probably Impossible – But Let’s At Least Make Them Efficient (Ben Laurie, July 2011)
  • Research Perspectives and Challenges for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies (Bonneau et al., March 2015)
• Slide 6:
  • Life Inside a Secret Chinese Bitcoin Mine (video; February 2015)
  • Inside a Chinese Bitcoin Mine (Re-purposed factory building; August 2014)
  • Inside One of the World’s Largest Bitcoin Mines (Custom-built building; August 2014) [photo mirror]
  • Visit of ASICMINER’s Immersion Cooling Mining Facility (located in Hong Kong; November 2013)
  • Closer Look: 3M’s Boiling Liquid Cooling
  • Meet the manic miner who wants to mint 10% of all new bitcoins (Ars Technica, 27 March 2014)
• Slide 7:
  • Total Bitcoins in Circulation
• Slide 8:
  • Bank of England: One Bank Research Agenda discussion paper (25 February 2015)
  • UBS CIO: Blockchain Technology Can Massively Simplify Banking (Wall Street Journal, 27 October 2014)
• Slide 10:
  • Current Bitcoin price (Historical chart)
  • Google Trends chart
• Slide 11:
  • The Bitcoin Foundation
• Slide 12:
  • Bitcoin Investment Trust
    • Bitcoin’s golden moment: BIT gets FINRA approval (CNBC, 4 March 2015)
  • Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust files to sell 20.1 million shares (MarketWatch, 31 December 2014)
    • Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust SEC filings
  • Global Advisors Bitcoin Investment Fund
    • Jersey approves first regulated Bitcoin fund (BBC News, 10 July 2014)
    • HSBC severs links with firm behind Bitcoin fund (BBC News, 1 December 2014)
  • IG Index Bitcoin Trading
  • ASICMiner “IPO” (on the bitcointalk.org discussion forum)
  • Havelock Investments (Panama-basd Bitcoin investments broker)
• Slide 13:
  • Proof of Existence
  • Blockstream
  • Counterparty
    • Overstock’s Radical Plan to Reinvent the Stock Market With Bitcoin (Wired, 30 July 2014)
  • OneName
  • OpenBazaar
    • Inside the ‘DarkMarket’ Prototype, a Silk Road the FBI Can Never Seize (Wired, 24 April 2014)
    • Silk Road successor DarkMarket rebrands as OpenBazaar (Guardian, 30 April 2014)
  • Ripple
  • Stellar
    • The Race to Replace Bitcoin (observer.com, 5 February 2015)
  • Ethereum
  • Storj
  • MaidSafe
  • Litecoin
  • Dogecoin
• Slide 14:
  • Marc Andreesen on Why Software Is Eating The World (Wall Street Journal, 20 August 2011)
  • Bitcoin Venture Capital (coindesk.com) [Google Docs spreadsheet]
  • Secretive Bitcoin Startup 21 Reveals Record Funds, Hints at Mass Consumer Play (Wall Street Journal, 10 March 2015)
  • Bitcoin company Coinbase lands $75m investment from NYSE and BBVA (Finacial Times, 20 January 2015)
• Slide 16:
  • Bitcoin anonymity (and lack thereof):
    • An Analysis of Anonymity in the Bitcoin System (Reid, Harrigan; 22 July 2011)
    • Case study: Tracing a Bitcoin Theft (Reid, Harrigan; 30 September 2011)
    • Prosecutors Trace $13.4m In Bitcoins From The Silk Road To Ulbricht’s Laptop (Wired, 29 January 2015)
  • Silk Road Mastermind Ross Ulbricht Convicted of All 7 Charges (Wired, 4 February 2015)
  • Texas Man Charged With Running Bitcoin Ponzi Scheme (Wall Street Journal, 6 November 2014)
  • Hong Kong bitcoin exchange disappears with at least $8.1 million (Business Insider, 9 Feb 2015)
  • How to steal Bitcoin in three easy steps (The Verge, 19 December 2013)
  • New Malware Propagates on Skype, Mines Bitcoins (PCMag UK, 7 April 2013)
  • Botcoin: Bitcoin Mining by Botnet (Brian Krebs, July 2013)
  • You’re infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins (Ars Technica, 17 October 2013)
  • Quote regarding NCA’s findings taken from p11 of HM Treasury’s Digital Currencies: response to the call for information (March 2015)
  • Finally, A Proper Use For Bitcoin, Avoiding Capital Controls (Forbes, 21 November 2013)
  • Bitcoin still gaining currency in China (FT, 11 March 2015)
  • One year later, we’re no closer to finding MtGox’s missing millions worth of bitcoins (PC World, 4 March 2015)
  • SEC Sanctions Operator of Bitcoin-Related Stock Exchange for Registration Violations (8 December 2014)
• Slide 17:
  • What Are Smart Contracts? Cryptocurrency’s Killer App (Fast Company, 17 September 2014)
  • Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (Wikipedia)
• Slide 18
  • Bitcoin – The Internet of Money (Naval Ravikant, July 2013)
  • How digital currency could transform the world (Richard Branson, 13 November 2014)
  • Bitcoin Is Evil – Paul Krugman (New York Times, 28 December 2013)
  • The Long Cryptocon – Paul Krugman (New York Times, 4 October 2014)
• Slide 20:
  • IRS Virtual Currency Guidance (25 March 2014)
  • New IRS rules make using Bitcoins a fiasco (CNN Money, 31 March 2014)
  • Application of FinCEN’s Regulations to Persons Administering, Exchanging, or Using Virtual Currencies (18 March 2013)
  • SEC Investor Alert: Ponzi schemes Using Virtual Currencies (23 July 2013)
  • SEC Investor Alert: Bitcoin and Other Virtual Currency-related Investments (7 May 2014)
  • FINRA Investor Alert: Bitcoin: More than a Bit Risky (7 May 2014)
  • CFTC Chairman: We Have Oversight of Bitcoin Derivatives (coindesk.com, 11 December 2014)
  • CFTC Commissioner Says Agency Has Authority Over Bitcoin Price Manipulation (Wall Street Journal, 17 November 2014)
  • Revised BitLicense Regulatory Framework (New York State Department of Financial Services, 25 February 2015)
  • Bitcoin and Virtual Currency Regulation Resources (Davis Polk & Wardwell)
    • Bitcoin: Overview of U.S. Legal Treatment
  • Comments On The Proposed Bitlicense Regulations (Fred Wilson, 24 March 2015)
• Slide 21:
  • Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin articles on digital currencies (11 September 2014)
  • Bank of England – One Bank Research Agenda discussion paper (February 2015)
  • Digital currencies: call for information (HM Treasury)
  • Revenue and Customs Brief 9 (2014): Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (HMRC policy paper, 3 March 2014)
• Slide 22:
  • Bitcoin is threat to sterling and may aid terrorists, warn banks (The Telegraph, 17 January 2015)
  • BBA and Payments Council submission on HMT Digital Currencies Consultation (3 December 2014)
• Slide 29:
  • Nesta Centre for Challenge Prizes
  • UKTI Sirius Programme

Key topics:

• Electronic Identity:
  • Your Next Passport Could Be On The Blockchain (Techcrunch.com, 31 October 2014)

Media coverage:

• FT Alphaville blog
• The Economist
  • Booking flights with bitcoin (26 February 2015)
  • The Silk Road Trial: Tales from the crypt (4 February 2015)
  • How bitcoin mining works (20 January 2015)
  • The Silk Road Trial: Bitcoin buccaneers (17 January 2015)
  • Ransomware: Your money or your data (15 January 2015)
  • Bitcoin: The magic of mining (10 January 2015)
  • Book review: The Age of Cryptocurrency (10 January 2015)
  • How do bitcoin transactions work? (9 January 2015)
  • Financial inclusion: A phoneful of dollars (15 November 2014)
  • The Amazons of the dark web (1 November 2014)
  • Obituary: Hal Finney (6 September 2014)
  • Bitcoin and startup financing: Crypto crowd  (3 July 2014)
  • Bitcoin: Losing to win (23 June 2014)
  • Bitcoin in Argentina (12 June 2014)
  • Bitcoin for the poor: Cash transfers in Africa (11 June 2014)
  • Bitcoin in Hong Kong (7 June 2014)
  • Payments: The end of a monopoly (10 May 2014)
  • Bitcoin’s deflation problem (3 April 2014)
  • Digital Security: Bitcoins run hot and cold (1 April 2014)
  • New money (on Bitcoin’s money supply; 17 March 2014)
  • Bitcoin’s future: How the crypto-currency could become the Internet of money (15 March 2014)
  • Chronic deflation may keep Bitcoin from displacing its fiat rivals (15 March 2014)
  • Bitconned: After Mt Gox (5 March 2014)
  • Bitcoin’s woes: Mt Gone (25 February 2014)
  • The great hiccup: Bitcoin is growing too fast for its technology to keep up (22 February 2014)
  • I didn’t come here for an argument (on Bitcoin’s dispute resolution system; 19 February 2014)
  • The Silk Road, reborn (15 February 2014)
  • The Silk Road 2.0: Better to get a line offline after all (14 February 2014)
  • Bitcoin: Bitten (on Charlie Shrem’s arrest; 1 February 2014)
  • DAC attack: Computer corporations (on Decentralised Autonomous Corporations; 28 January 2014)
  • Washing virtual money (26 January 2014)
  • China blues: Bitcoin’s collapse (18 December 2013)
  • Bitcoin: JP Morgan jumps in (11 December 2013)
  • Obamacare and Bitcoin: Trust no one (6 December 2013)
  • The Bitcoin Bubble (30 November 2013)
  • Bitcoin under pressure (30 November 2013)
  • Buying a new identity (description of a Bitcoin-based digital ID; 19 November 2013)
  • End of the Road: The Silk Road is busted (2 October 2013)
  • Following the Bitcoin trail (28 August 2013)
  • How can you buy illegal drugs online? (25 August 2013)
  • Cyber-attacks: Computer says no (22 June 2013)
  • Taking a liberty: Life for virtual money launderers is getting harder (1 June 2013)
  • Why does Kenya lead the world in mobile money? (27 May 2013)
  • A new specie: Regulators should keep their hands off new forms of digital money such as Bitcoin (13 April 2013)
  • Mining digital gold: Even if it crashes, Bitcoin may make a dent in the financial world (13 April 2013)
  • How does Bitcoin work? (11 April 2013)
  • A Bit expensive: Bitcoin’s record price looks like a bubble (19 March 2013)
  • Monetarists Anonymous (29 September 2012)
  • The bursting of the Bitcoin bubble (21 October 2011)
  • Virtual currency: Bits and bob (13 June 2011)