“Bitcoin is Venice” while it may be unintentional of Allen Farrington, is actually a bit of revisionist history that I appreciate. This is because the standard historical take of early capitalism is that it was a flourishing of Protestant Europe throwing off the shackles of Christendom. Murray Rothbard thought this trope was a myth. In reality, the roots of capitalism were planted with St Thomas, the Spanish Scholastics, and the Venetians. The decentralized political landscape of medieval Christendom is also underappreciated in standard textbook discussion.

I expect that Farrington emphasized Venice (as opposed to Amsterdam, for example) to make a point about culture and how bitcoin could be part of the next renaissance. Still, I love how revisionist Rothbardian history is right at home in bitcoin.