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The theoretical foundations of bitcoin have been frequently traced back to the Austrian school ofeconomics (ECB 2012). To the extent that they are not issued by a centralized authority and do not relyon an official legal tender status for their acceptance, cryptocurrencies may indeed appear as a dramaticdeparture from the historical trend that has lead, over the past few centuries, to “the making of nationalmoney” (Helleiner 1998) and as a decisive step towards a “denationalization of money” as envisaged byF. A. von Hayek (1990). This paper investigates to what extent bitcoin truly embodies the principles ofstable money advocate by Hayek and whether the proliferation of cryptocurrencies can be expected togive rise to a Hayekian monetary competition.