The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

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When economic decision making is geared toward the future, it is natural that all manner of decisions are geared toward the future as well. People become more peaceful and cooperative, understanding that cooperation is a far more rewarding long‐term strategy than any short‐term gains from conflict. People develop a strong sense of morality, prioritizing the moral choices that will cause the best long‐term outcomes for them and their children. A person who thinks of the long run is less likely to cheat, lie, or steal, because the reward for such activities may be positive in the short run, but can be devastatingly negative in the long run. Ko je psevdonimni programer leta 2008 majhni skupini prejemnikov elektronske pošte predstavil »nov sistem elektronske gotovine, ki v celoti deluje v načinu vsak-z- vsakim in izključuje potrebo po zaupanja vredni tretji osebi«, je temu le malokdo posvetil pozornost. Toda stvari so se spremenile. To nadobudno avtonomno decentralizirano omrežje navkljub vsem preprekam zdaj ponuja trden denar ter z njim neustavljivo in globalno dostopno alternativo sodobnim centralnim bankam. Bitcoin standard analizira zgodovinski kontekst vzpona Bitcoina, ekonomske lastnosti, ki so mu omogočile hitro rast, ter njegove verjetne ekonomske, politične in družbene posledice. Note: Once one power did it without causing a run on the bank then they sort of all had to do it because otherwise they would be outspent and lose the war. Could appeal to nationalism to prvent bank run. This analysis may help explain why Bitcoin has resisted all attempts to change it significantly so far. The coordination problem of organizing a simultaneous shift among people with adversarial interests, many of whom are strongly vested in the notion of immutability for its own sake, is likely intractable barring any pressing reason for people to move away from current implementations. Ammous describes what BTC has become in its promoters’ eyes: “a global hard money” to store financial wealth, which third party intermediaries can hold and trade on their platforms, much like banks do now. Noting the incongruity, he writes, “While this view of Bitcoin might sound like it is a betrayal of Bitcoin’s original vision[correct, emphasis added] of fully peer-to-peer cash, it is not a new vision.” The digital-gold-as-universal-money idea had indeed been around for over a decade before the white paper. But this had little (if anything) to do with Satoshi’s white paper, and was not the problem Satoshi was trying to solve: ‘casual’ transactions (read small and uneconomic for banks) settling with electronic cash without the need for a fiduciary intermediary.

‎The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to

Considering "politics" in the digital space (because money is inextricably tied to politics) has forced me to evaluate and work with some things. Now of course cash (which is what Bitcoin is) in and of itself on a functional basis is non political. It's simply cash. Yet a lot of the innovations and cryptographic history behind bitcoin have come out of the more libertarian/anarchist mindset. Certain ideas of libertarians have always appealed to me and this book is a libertarian (Austrian school specifically) perspective. For example, none of us like big government and big tech peeking into our lives and date and I don't believe anything which doesn't directly harm another should be illegal. I certainly agree with the rules being the same for everyone, multinationals included. Medtem ko je Bitcoin nova iznajdba digitalne dobe, pa rešuje problem, ki je star toliko kot človeška družba: prenos vrednosti skozi prostor in čas. Ammous popelje bralca na zanimivo popotovanje skozi zgodovino tehnologij, ki so opravljale funkcijo denarja: od primitivnih sistemov trgovanja s kamni in školjkami do kovin, kovancev, zlatega standarda in sodobnega državnega dolga. Raziskovanje vzrokov, ki so tem tehnologijam omogočili prevzem monetarne vloge, bralcu ponuja dobro predstavo o lastnostih zanesljivega denarja in postavlja temelje za ekonomsko razpravo o njegovih vplivih na posameznikovo in družbeno usmerjenost v prihodnost, akumulacijo kapitala, trgovanje, mir, kulturo in umetnost. Ammous pokaže, kako ni nobeno naključje, da so najveličastnejši dosežki človeštva plod družb, ki so žéle koristi zanesljivih monetarnih ureditev, in kako ni noben slučaj, da je monetarni propad običajno spremljal propad civilizacije. The author thinks modern art is bad. I understand feeling that "today's music ain't got the same soul" but it hardly makes a solid monetary argument. He thinks environmentalists are wrong apparently on the basis of a peak resource theory of a single person. The value of money, supposed to be the unit of account with which all economic activity is measured and planned, went from being the value of the least volatile good on the market to being determined through the sum of three policy tools of the government—monetary, fiscal, and trade policy—and most unpredictably, through the reactions of individuals to these policy tools. Governments deciding to dictate the measure of value makes as much sense as governments attempting to dictate the measure of length based on the heights of individuals and buildings in their territories. One can only imagine the sort of confusion that would happen to all engineering projects were the length of the meter to oscillate daily with the pronouncements of a central measurements office. Only the vanity of the insane can be affected by changing the unit with which they’re measured. Making the meter shorter might make someone whose house’s area is 200 square meters believe it is actually 400 square meters, but it would still be the same house. All that this redefinition of the meter has caused is ruin an engineer’s ability to properly build or maintain a house. Similarly, devaluing a currency may make a country richer nominally, or increase the nominal value of its exports, but it does nothing to make the country more prosperous.

The Bitcoin Standard Summary/Review

Civilization is not about more capital accumulation per se; rather, it is about what capital accumulation allows humans to achieve, the flourishing and freedom to seek higher meaning in life when their base needs are met and most pressing dangers averted.

The Bitcoin Standard - Saifedean Ammous

Sound money allows people to think about the long-term and to save and invest more for the future. Saving and investing for the long run are the key to capital accumulation and the advance of human civilization. Unlike the Romans and the Byzantines, Arab and Muslim civilizations’ collapse was not linked to the collapse of their money as they maintained the integrity of their currencies for centuries. It's also worth noting that there was no meaningful mention of bitcoin throughout this part of the book. There are good books available which give an introduction to Austrian School economics, not wholly tinged by a militant brand of libertarian ideology. There are good books about the political philosophy of liberalism. There are also good books on the history of monetary systems, and critiques of our current economic and monetary system, and the failures of central banking. This book is not one of them.Los capítulos sobre Bitcoin son básicos en cuanto a la tecnología criptográfica que lo soporta, pero creo que explican muy bien por qué sus propiedades son ideales para convertirse, en el mejor de los casos, en la base de un patrón monetario alternativo que sustituya al actual, o al menos en un activo muy atractivo para actuar como depósito de valor durante las próximas décadas. sound money is an essential requirement for individual freedom from despotism and repression, as the ability of a coercive state to create money can give it undue power over its subjects, the power which by its very nature will attract the least worthy, and most immoral, to take its reins. Note: Credit gets allocated to least efficient middlde of supply chain rather than more productive fringes