The Bitcoin Standard
at the time of publication
When a pseudonymous programmer introduced “a new electronic cash system that’s fully peer-to-peer, with no trusted third party” to a small Online mailing list in 2008, very few paid attention. Ten years later, and against all odds, this upstart autonomous decentralized software offers an unstoppable and globally-accessible hard money alternative to modern central banks. The BitcoinBitcoin1$ 86,299.820.18%-6.01%-15.89%details Standard analyzes the historical context to the rise of bitcoin, the economic properties that have allowed it to grow quickly, and its likely economic, political, and social implications.
Ammous’ firm grasp of the technological possibilities as well as the historical realities of monetary evolution provides for a fascinating exploration of the ramifications of voluntary free market money. As it challenges the most sacred of government monopolies, bitcoin shifts the pendulum of sovereignty away from governments in favor of individuals, offering us the tantalizing possibility of a world where money is fully extricated from politics and unrestrained by borders.
Featured Review
Understanding of economics everyone should have!
Beyond “yet another Bitcoin book”, about half of this one is an amazing lecture on general economics, the history of money, its purpose, and the impact of the use of different types of money in different societies, the basic understanding I believe everybody should be taught in school.
He then proceeds to construct the thesis that Bitcoin has all the characteristics of “Sound Money”, more than anything ever used as money so far (divisibility, transportability and ability to hold value through time, not prone to sudden appreciation/depreciation through intervention), which he does in a brilliant way.
Towards the latter part, he goes through the technicalities of Bitcoin just enough to make it easy to grasp for the non-technical readers, while keeping it quite captivating for the technical ones (me).
It’s certainly the best content on Bitcoin (and probably on general economics, for that matter) I’ve ever had access to, and it made me even more excited about Bitcoin. I highly recommend it!