You spend a lot of time thinking about money, and it does kind of make the world go around,

but do you know what it is? I like to joke that, you know, in the beginning was not the coin,

in the beginning was the receipt. There's nothing inherently valuable about a dollar bill,

or a coin that you keep in your pocket or even a bar of gold.

Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse and some have failed.

The waitress came over and said the drawing looked like a $1 bill and asked if she could buy it from me.

Bitcoin, a virtual currency that doesn't abide by rules of a bank or government.

Let's think about the whole crypto thing.

So I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, reading about this and taking it very seriously.

And I've come to the following conclusion.

If you have to explain to someone it's money, it's not money.

Is he right about that?

It would pay to stay tuned.

From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

Brooke Gladstone is away this week. I'm Bob Garfield.

Everybody got hurt.

Major financial institutions have teetered on the edge of collapse, and some have failed.

A decade ago came two watershed moments in the history of money.

In September 2008, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers triggered a financial meltdown from which

the world has yet to fully recover.

The following month, someone using the name Satoshi Nakamoto, introduced Bitcoin, the first

cryptocurrency. A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. Bitcoin transactions have no middleman.

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