I found that entire section amusing. Some choice quotes:
> So does Bitcoin. A Bitcoin user has two keys: a public key, from which an address is derived that acts as a digital safe deposit box; and a private key, which is the secret combination used to unlock that box and spend the coins it contains.
> How interesting, I thought, that Mr. Back’s grad-school hobby involved the same cryptographic technique that Satoshi had repurposed.
> And Mr. Back’s thesis project focused on C++ — the same programming language Satoshi used to code the first version of the Bitcoin software.
Quantum computing isn't a serious threat. Would require a concentrated effort from the community to migrate to a quantum-proof hashing algorithm but there's no greater motivation than potentially losing it all.
They’re durable, resistant to corruption, relatively rare, pretty… Titanium or gems would’ve been equally used if they were equally convenient. Not to mention that coinage could be minted or mixed with, say, copper. Gold makes good alloys and can be recovered later.
With all the top heavy population age histograms around the world, the rent seeking is built into all the economies to provide benefits until it becomes too top heavy and revolution occurs.
Now you need to look into the "Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel" - Economics wasn't part of Nobel's original endowment so the Swedish Central bank funded it in the 60s.
