The nature and meaning of cryptocurrencies. Review of Massimo Amato and Luca Fantacci, Per un pugno di bitcoin. Rischi e opportunità delle monete virtuali. EGEA, 2018

The topic of cryptocurrencies is increasingly addressed in articles featured in specialized and non-specialized media, as well as in central banks’ documents and by financial intermediaries themselves. However, it rarely receives a thorough theoretical analysis. This is the attempt by Amato and Fantacci, two of the foremost Italian experts on monetary economics who recently published an updated version of a work that analyses the Bitcoin system from a technical point of view but also to make a closer examination of its macroeconomic and policy implications