Cryptic

I'm reminded that Sir Isaac Newton wasn't knighted for his many contributions to science and apple picking; he became Sir Isaac because of his work standardizing Great Britain's currency.

Money. We've always thought it was more important than gravity. Or math. Or the universe.

How many bitcoin in a shilling? Or is that how many shillings in a bitcoin?

El Salvador has adopted the bitcoin as legal tender, becoming the first country (but certainly not the last) to recognize the reality of crypto-currency. El Salvador is probably more famous to most Americans as being the setting for James Woods last (only?) good movie than it is for being a hotbed of economic theory and monetary policy. When you hear "El Salvador" you may still picture sweaty, cigar-smoking Che wannabees quoting Lenin while swatting away mosquitoes while cleaning their AK-47s and why wouldn't you? You're still wearing the clothes you thought made you cool in high school (weren't cool then, not cool now). None of this (I think) is fair to El Salvador and its people (or you and your questionable fashion choices) but at least they have something else to sustain national pride: Bar Trivia.

Twenty years from now you'll be thinking "Why would El Salvador be on that list if it wasn't…" but you'll still go with (c) Switzerland. Because Nazi gold. 

Money has always been representative of rather than having any intrinsic value. Well, maybe when there was a gold standard the phrase "full faith and credit" meant something. Would it really be better to have gold ingots than paper dollars in a zombie apocalypse? Gold bullets, maybe. Paper would still be easier to carry and it would definitely have greater utility when you need to start a fire. 

Given the evolution of money - from beads and shells to metal and paper to plastic and apps - a digital currency seems more an inevitability than a fad created by a group of nerds in one of their parent's basements after a particularly invigorating game of Call of Cthulhu. (Maybe that happened; maybe it didn't.) How much longer until you park and plug your electric Mustang (Another call back to high school? You need help my friend.) and head into that new Asian-Mexican fusion restaurant you had to wait three weeks for a reservation, and find the menu is priced in ₿?

Or you could just fuel up your private jet and head on down to San Salvador. I hear the venison chorizo is to die for.