Overview of the Podcast Episode

In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss two electronic cash proposals that predated Bitcoin: B-Money and ARPow. They explore the similarities and differences between these proposals and highlight the main ideas behind each. B-Money, proposed by Wei Dai, was a rough sketch of a digital cash system that aimed to prevent double spending by having participants keep track of the ledger. Although not implemented, B-Money introduced the concept of consensus-based balance tracking. ARPow, implemented by Hal Finney, was a centralized system with transparent code. Users could connect to the server, perform proof of work, and receive coins. Remote attestation was used to verify the code running on the server. The hosts also discuss how ARPow had an inflationary supply and why it did not gain much traction compared to Bitcoin.