As a former assistant professor of law at West Point, I salute your interest in discussing the fundamental principles of government espoused by Jefferson as applied to cryptocurrencies.

First, everyone should recognize that when Hamilton and Jefferson were debating over the pros and cons of authorizing the First Bank of the United States, the debate not only sharpened each side's positions, but caused those positions to be stated in the strongest, most extreme form -- much the way two sides in a tug of war end up standing at 45 degree angles to the ground. They would not, and could not, maintain such an extreme stance without the opposing force of the other side.

Hamilton won. And since then, his extreme 45-degree angle positions have been treated as not only straight-standing, but as somehow "fundamental" for our national proseperity. The extreme praise and build-up of the play "Hamilton" is partly evidence and partly cause of this.

But Jefferson understood that if private bankers were allowed to control and create the country's currency out of nothing, as their relatives who owned the Bank of England did in England, they would soon control the government, the making and interpretation of laws, and the way the Constitution was taught and interpreted.

He was right. Even Judge Bork, who was in every other respect a strict-constructionist of the Constitution, bent to the status quo of the Federal Reserve when it came to interpreting the Consitutional stipulation that only Congress had the power to create money.

So in one respect, cryptocurrencies are antithetical to Jefferson's idea that the nation's money should be created by elected representatives who are accountable to their constituents. But the other side of that coin is that when Private Bankers (The Federal Reserve is neither "federal" nor a "reserve") have seized all control of money and banking to themselves, an alternative that is under the control of the populace itself should be welcomed and encouraged.

I have written elsewhere that Bitcoin may be standing in for gold in the financial markets, because A) it is based on ownership rather than debt, and B) it is not yet under the control of the central bankers.

I suggest that all of Jefferson's warnings about the dangers of private-bank-control of currencies should be heeded when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Letting bankers capture control of when cryptocurrencies can be used, or regulate how transactions must be reported by exchanges, or any of a myriad of other intrusions they will undoubtedly try to make, are all areas where the crypto community must maintain great diligence to defeat re-centralization of control.