The Bitcoin Standard
Saifedean Ammous · 2018
The Bitcoin Standard (2018) is a book by Saifedean Ammous on Money / Crypto & Digital Assets. An economist's history of money, from seashells and gold to central banks, arguing that "hard" money whose supply can't be inflated underpins civilization, and that Bitcoin may be its digital successor.
It reframes Bitcoin not as a tech gadget but as the latest chapter in humanity's 5,000-year search for money that governments can't debase.
Two of the ideas you’ll keep
The Clif summary of The Bitcoin Standard pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first two.
- Money's quality is measured by its **stock-to-flow ratio**, the existing supply divided by annual new production. A high ratio (like gold's) means new mining barely dilutes holders, making the money 'hard' and resistant to debasement.
- Whatever is used as money gets over-produced until it collapses: West African aggry beads, Yap's Rai stones, and Native American wampum all failed once Europeans could supply them cheaply. This is the **'easy money trap'**, good money for a store of value is money nobody can easily make more of.
The other 5 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.
What’s inside: 8 chapters
The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.
- Why Money Is Civilization's Operating System
- The Stock-to-Flow Ratio and Hard Money
- Primitive Monies and the Easy Money Trap
- The Golden Age of Sound Money
- Government Money and the Collapse of Soundness
- Time Preference, Capital, and Civilization
- Bitcoin: Absolute Scarcity by Design
- What Bitcoin Is Good For, and What It Isn't
Finish The Bitcoin Standard tonight.
Read or listen to the full summary in about 11 minutes, then keep the ideas with a minute of review a day. Start with the 2-minute quiz — no card required.
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