[mpyne]

> Bitcoin is no more a "den of thieves" than a cash-based society, which most of the world was until recently.

Actually it seems that credit/debt was usually the standard and not cash per se, at least if David Graeber's book on the history of debt can be believed ("Debt: The First 5,000 Years"). While cash has certainly been used since antiquity, most transactions were on credit, even before Western Europe exited the Middle Ages, with cash limited to certain purposes and/or segments of society.

[stephengillie]

Trade credit (I'll buy these hammers today, bill me next week) is somewhat different from credit cards. Credit cards are a financial tool to provide easy access to temporary funds, and are usually backed by banks, which have only existed for ~500 years. Trade credit is part of the give-and-take of relationships in that we recognize resource ticks aren't always synchronized.