I gave a talk this afternoon at BitcoinExpo2015 about my vision of the future (and past) of money. This gave me the opportunity of meeting a number of very interesting people in the Bitcoin community, and I’m looking forward to some highly informative discussions in the weeks to come.

It also gave me the chance of plugging my new book, Flight of the Golden Geese. There’s been a hold-up with the paper galley proofs, so the latest news is that the e-book will be out mid-February, but the paper copy will not appear until March at the earliest.

When I got back home I looked up the broadcast I made for Channel 4 back in 1998 on the Future of Money. I was astonished that apart from mentioning Bitcoin, everything I said back then about off-planet banking, was included in today’s presentation. I talked about sending digital money contained in a digital safe up into space. Come to think of it, `digital money in a digital safe` isn’t a bad description of crypto-currencies like Bitcoin.

The downside of watching the clip was the shock of seeing the Ian Angell of 17 years ago. I hardly recognise myself! Take a look for yourself.