SU Dean Hilbay launches international publication of ‘An Introduction to Bitcoin’
Atty. Florin T. Hilbay, former solicitor general of the Philippines, author, educator, and current dean of the SU College of Law.
Silliman University (SU) College of Law dean and former solicitor general of the Philippines Atty. Florin T. Hilbay recently launched the international edition of his book, An Introduction to Bitcoin: Navigating the Future of Money, through Konsensus Network, a publishing firm based in Europe, on January 30, 2024.
An earlier version of the book was launched in March 2023 at Silliman Hall with Hilbay and Silliman University officials present at the event.
Left to right: Prof. Jane Annette L. Belarmino, then Vice President for Development and Enterprise and External Affairs; Dr. Earl Jude Paul L. Cleope, Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA); Evangeline Bravo-Manjares, Outstanding Sillimanian Awardee (SA) and SU Trustee; Atty. Florin T. Hilbay, Dean of the College of Law and author; Atty. May S. Aguilar, (SU) College of Law alumna and SU Trustee; and Dr. Betty Cernol McCann, SU President, unveil the copies during t he book launch in March 2023, Silliman Hall.
In the international publisher’s blog titled, “Decoding Bitcoin: A Journey Through its Metaphors and Mechanisms,” penned by the author himself, Hilbay opened by suggesting a simple way to explain what Bitcoin is.
“With metaphors. Lots and lots of them,” Hilbay said in his short essay on the blog.
Book cover for the international release of Introduction to Bitcoin: Navigating the Future of Money by international publishing house, Konsensus Network.
“An Introduction to Bitcoin,” he continued, “is an attempt to explain as many of the pieces of the puzzle, within the confines of a small book. It is a guide, if you will, for those who wish to walk the path laid out for us by Satoshi Nakamoto.”
Nakamoto is the Shakespeare of Bitcoin, the presumed pseudonymous person or persons responsible for the creation of Bitcoin in 2008.
Launched in 2009, Bitcoin took the world by storm, baffling governments, banks, and other currencies with its wide fluctuations in value. Because they exist only in digital form, the coins are called a cryptocurrency. It’s the world’s first decentralized cryptocurrency, using blockchain technology to secure and verify transactions.
Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, explained in his Foreword to Milbay’s book that An Introduction to Bitcoin offers a “blueprint” of an alternative future, one where a digital world currency accessed by people from all walks of life – “a refugee or a billionaire, equally” – will not again be “caught between the evils of empire and tyranny.”
“This rings especially true for inhabitants of the global south, or citizens trapped in authoritarian regimes who don’t have the luxury of being born into a reserve currency like the dollar,” Gladstein said.
Foreword by Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation, penned August 2023.
Which is why, Gladstein explained, An Introduction to Bitcoin isn’t necessarily a book about how to get more money—instead, it is more about what money is and how it operates on a global scale. More like a historical survey of money rather than a self-help guide into the world of Bitcoin, the book puts into perspective how money has become a tool for control by the oppressors in a context like the Philippines, a country that has suffered “foreign occupation, neocolonial resource exploitation, and corrupt dictatorship,” and how Bitcoin can alternatively become a tool for freedom.
“…understanding Bitcoin leads to what is likely one of the greatest lessons of the 21st century,” Hilbay wrote in his essay.
Hilbay’s book is an urge for the future: digital currency is the future of money.
An Introduction to Bitcoin: Navigating the Future of Money is now available for purchase on Amazon.com.
