I reading Plutarch's Lives to the kids tonight as they were going to bed (hint, they fell asleep fast). I was struck by the story of Lycurgus, and his solution for inequality in Sparta. He "withdrew all gold and silver from currency" (not sure how), and instead used iron, but made sure that it was a useless iron that couldn't be used for anything else! He would have used paper if he could have I think. Or bits and bites on a government computer if he had one. That's pretty interesting.
But, what is also interesting, that I feel I have to acknowledge if I'm going to be intellectually honest, is "men of large possessions had no advantage over the poor, because their wealth found no public outlet, but had to be stored up at home in idleness. In this way it came about that such common and necessary utensils [...] were most excellently made among them". It seems to imply that because the wealthy couldn't store up their wealth they had to use it on useful things. This seems like a valid criticism of bitcoin. It really is only a "store of value" that we want to hoard to protect ourselves. Not something that will allow the creation of other useful things.
Here is the link, go the section 9. Also, I've posted the section below:
9 1 Next, he undertook to divide up their movable property also, in order that every vestige of unevenness and inequality might be removed; and when he saw that they could not bear to have it taken from them directly, he took another course, and overcame their avarice by political devices. In the first place, he withdrew all gold and silver money from currency, and ordained the use of iron money only.a Then to a great weight and mass of this he gave a trifling p231 value, so that ten minas' worth9 required a large store-room in the house, and a yoke of cattle to transport it. 2 When this money obtained currency, many sorts of iniquity went into exile from Lacedaemon. For who would steal, or receive as a bribe, or rob, or plunder that which could neither be concealed, nor possessed with satisfaction, nay, nor even cut to pieces with any profit? For vinegar was used, as we are told, to quench the red-hot iron, robbing it of its temper and making it worthless for any other purpose, when once it had become brittle and hard to work.
3 In the next place, he banished the unnecessary and superfluous arts. And even without such banishment most of them would have departed with the old coinage, since there was no sale for their products. For the iron money could not be carried into the rest of Greece, nor had it any value there, but was rather held in ridicule. It was not possible, therefore, to buy any foreign wares or bric-à‑brac; no merchant-seamen brought freight into their harbours; no rhetoric teacher set foot on Laconian soil, no vagabond soothsayer, no keeper of harlots, no gold- or silver-smith, since there was no money there. 4 But luxury, thus gradually deprived of that which stimulated and supported it, died away of itself, 45and men of large possessions had no advantage over the poor, because their wealth found no public outlet, but had to be stored up at home in idleness. In this way it came about that such common and necessary utensils as bedsteads, chairs, and tables were most excellently made among them, and the Laconian "kothon," or drinking-cup, was in very high repute for usefulness among soldiers in active service, as Critias tells us. 5 For its colour concealed the disagreeable appearance of the water which they were often compelled to drink, and its curving lips caught the muddy sediment and held it inside, so that only the purer part reached the mouth of the drinker. For all this they had to thank their lawgiver; since their artisans were now freed from useless tasks, and displayed the beauty of their workmanship in objects of constant and necessary use.