Shermin Voshmgir, director of the Research Institute for Crypto Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and founder of BlockchainHub, will share her thoughts on the token economy and the roles and functions of money.

There is a widespread misconception that Bitcoin and tokens that have derived from similar technologies, are currencies comparable to fiat currencies like EUR, USD, etc. This talk will point out why Bitcoin and other crypto tokens are not currencies in the traditional sense, but rather a new asset which has more similarities to commodity money rather than to fiat money. It is furthermore an operating system for a new type of economy with distributed governance that can transcendent geographic boundaries of nation states. The biggest challenge that we face, when we are trying to explain or discuss Bitcoin, Blockchain and Tokens, is that we are trying to explain new phenomena with old terminology that sometimes don’t do justice to the full range of possibilities that these new technologies have to offer. While it might be counterproductive to call Bitcoin a currency, it does have similarities with money as we know it. But what are the roles and functions of money, and can a token economy eradicate the monopoly of nation states to issue money?

Participation is free of charge.
Seats are limited, booking is essential!
Register here: info (at) supermarkt-berlin.net
Language: English

More info about Shermin:
Shermin is the director of the Research Institute for Crypto Economics at the Vienna University of Economics, and the founder of BlockchainHub – an international network of autonomous Hubs that promote the idea of blockchain, crypto economics and  the decentralized web. She is also advisor of Jolocom, a blockchain based self sovereign identity protocol. In the past, she was a curator of theDAO and on the advisory board of the Estonian e-residency program and was. She regularly speaks at conferences and consults on Blockchains and the social impact of future technologies. Shermin did her PhD in IT-Management at the Vienna University of Economics, where she used to work as an assistant professor and currently lectures blockchain related topics. Furthermore she studied film and drama in Madrid. Her past work experience ranges from internet start-ups, IT consulting & filmmaking. Among others her films have screened in Cannes and at dOCUMENTA. Shermin is Austrian with Iranian roots, and has been living in Berlin for many years now.