The Bitcoin Standard explains why Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency to be paying attention to right now and why it is the way to go if the world wants to stick with having sound money utilizing the history of money and gold.
Have you ever considered life before money? How did it function? Really, it was quite easy—people just traded things. A horse was exchanged for a cow, and so on. The only time it didn’t work well was when you didn’t have what your neighbor required. Everything changed once people realized they could exchange things with universal worth for goods.
From there, we transitioned from various types of money made from valuable metals to government-printed paper today. But a century of boom and bust and rising debt has followed the abandonment of the “gold standard” of money in favor of easily manipulated paper money. How can we have money that is safe and unaffected by fraud?
Fortunately for us, a newcomer to the scene has emerged that is ideal for our requirements: Bitcoin. We examine the potential of digital cryptocurrency in The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking by Saifedean Ammous. It is incredibly stable and versatile, much like how gold was employed in earlier times. We might be close to the best currency if we could resolve a few issues.
Money is how we exchange goods and services
Unlike the paper you have in your wallet now, early money was not very similar to it. In the past, money has varied around the globe. Stones, shells, and even livestock have all been traded.
Good money can be easily sold and is hence salable. Early pre-Christian civilizations were able to produce highly marketable coins that were also incredibly portable because to the technology of metal smelting.
Gold coins were the most popular kind. It has a few distinctive features. First off, creating or destroying it is incredibly difficult. However, getting it from the ground requires mining, and the further you go, the deeper the mine must be.
The eighteenth and twentieth centuries saw a surge in transportation and communications, which made it acceptable to accept non-physical forms of payment like paper checks and invoices. They backed these documents with gold in order to persuade people to believe them.
With the “gold standard,” which backed currency with gold, Britain set the precedent. Consequently, nations from all over the world adopted a similar strategy, turning this era into one of sound money. This ushered in a period of exceptional prosperity.
Bitcoin’s uniqueness, scarcity, and security make it a potential replacement for conventional money.
Financial shortfalls after World War One led European governments to abandon the gold standard. They introduced fiat currency, which was not backed by gold but by law. This changeover led to an age of unsound money where governments may intervene in the economy to stabilize the value of their currencies.
Many issues, including debt and recessions, are brought on by unsound money. Government interventions skew markets and trigger boom-and-bust cycles. The creation of a fresh gold standard would be the only remedy. Herein lies the value of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has a fixed supply; there will never be more than the current 21 million coins. This is similar to gold-backed money.
Because bitcoins are mined, like gold, they too have a steady supply. When a particularly difficult arithmetic problem is cracked, the computers connected to the Bitcoin network pool their processing power to award the “miner” with bitcoins.
Bitcoins are unaffected by manipulation since they are the only good with an absolute scarcity definition.
Also, it is quite secure. The blockchain, a public ledger, maintains a history of all recent transactions. It is visible to everyone and supported by every machine on the network, making manipulation nearly impossible. The finest thing is that there is no need for a central organization to manage it.
We must first overcome some challenges if we want to fully utilize Bitcoin.
Although it is clearly very promising, there remain obstacles. Price volatility is one of them. An solitary bitcoin increased 422,520,000% from $0.000994 to $4,200 between 2010 and 2017! Yet, bitcoin increased from $750 to $20,000 in just the year 2017.
Its volatility is primarily attributable to demand, and because it’s so new, demand is incredibly changeable. However, this variation has only damaged its standing. They enquire as to how it can be dependable if it changes. The author thinks that these variations should level off as the market expands, though.
The requirement for growth is Bitcoin’s second obstacle. But, for Bitcoin to keep expanding, it would eventually need to rely on centralized organizations. Sadly, it appears that there is no practical method to get around this: the more transactions that take place, the more ledger copies that need to be updated.
More transaction fees and more processing power are needed for all of this. This might provide a strong argument in favor of implementing a new gold standard in the form of a currency backed by bitcoin. Yet, this would need to be supervised by a centralized organization.
The Bitcoin Standard Book Review
The Bitcoin Standard is a thought-provoking book written by Saifedean Ammous that delves into the history of money and the potential of Bitcoin as a new standard for currency. The book argues that Bitcoin has the potential to become the new gold standard, a decentralized and secure form of money that is resistant to inflation and government interference.
The author begins by tracing the history of money from its origins as a simple bartering system to the modern-day fiat currency system. He explains how the current fiat currency system is flawed and how it has led to inflation, economic instability, and financial crises.
The book then explores the characteristics of Bitcoin and how it differs from traditional forms of money. The author argues that Bitcoin has several advantages over fiat currency, including its decentralization, limited supply, and the ability to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions without the need for intermediaries.
One of the key takeaways from the book is the idea that Bitcoin is not just a form of currency, but a new monetary system that has the potential to reshape the global economy. The author believes that Bitcoin can help to promote financial freedom and create a more stable and equitable financial system.
The book is well-researched and written in a clear and concise manner. The author uses real-world examples and analogies to help explain complex concepts, making the book accessible to both technical and non-technical readers.
Overall, The Bitcoin Standard is a fascinating book that provides a fresh perspective on the future of money and the potential of Bitcoin. It is a must-read for anyone interested in economics, finance, or technology.
About Growthex Platform
Get the most out of every book you read. Growthex provides free, high quality summaries of books to help you make the most of your reading time.
Unlocking the power of knowledge, one book at a time. Growthex – the home for free, high-quality book summaries. Learn something new today.
If you really like this “The Bitcoin Standard Book Summary” by Growthex then you can also check out some more amazing posts | summaries which are freely available on this platform :
- No Rules Rules Book Summary And Review
- Get the Guy Book Summary and Review | By Matthew Hussey
- Socialism Book Summary
- The Personal MBA Book Summary and Review | By Josh Kauffman
- The Untethered Soul Book Summary and Review | By Michael Singer
- Who Will Cry When You Die? Book Summary and Review | By Robin Sharma
- Business Adventures Book Summary and Review
- The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene
- The Power of Full Engagement Book Summary and Review
- Predictably Irrational Book Summary and Review
Categories For You
To Watch great book summary explanation videos in Hindi language then visit : THIS YOUTUBE CHANNEL