The Bitcoin Standard

The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

De: Saifedean Ammous

Narrado por: James Fouhey

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 Bitcoin 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.

While bitcoin is a new invention of the digital age, the problem it purports to solve is as old as human society itself: transferring value across time and space. Ammous takes the listener on an engaging journey through the history of technologies performing the functions of money, from primitive systems of trading limestones and seashells, to metals, coins, the gold standard, and modern government debt. Exploring what gave these technologies their monetary role, and how most lost it, provides the listener with a good idea of what makes for sound money, and sets the stage for an economic discussion of its consequences for individual and societal future-orientation, capital accumulation, trade, peace, culture, and art. Compellingly, Ammous shows that it is no coincidence that the loftiest achievements of humanity have come in societies enjoying the benefits of sound monetary regimes, nor is it coincidental that monetary collapse has usually accompanied the collapse of a civilization.

With this background in place, the book moves on to explain the operation of bitcoin in a functional and intuitive way. Bitcoin is a decentralized, distributed piece of software that converts electricity and processing power into indisputably accurate records, thus allowing its users to utilize the Internet to perform the traditional functions of money without having to rely on, or trust, any authorities or infrastructure in the physical world. Bitcoin is thus best understood as the first successfully implemented form of digital cash and digital hard money. With an automated and perfectly predictable monetary policy, and the ability to perform final settlement of large sums across the world in a matter of minutes, Bitcoin’s real competitive edge might just be as a store of value and network for final settlement of large payments - a digital form of gold with a built-in settlement infrastructure.

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.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©2018 Saifedean Ammous (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Extremely Important Read

Bitcoin has and most certainly will continue to have major impacts on the world and our future, in terms of sound money, which impacts nearly everything in our lives. This book was a great introduction to the tech and it's implications. Also equally important was the history of money and the principles of Austrian Economics which is discussed. Excellent book.

Great content but heavily biased

This book is a must-read for a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast, but it is also very accessible for the casual reader. The author provides an excellent historical evaluation of "hard" versus "soft" money and makes a strong case about just how much of a change the Central Bank era was compared to the past. The author then moves to Bitcoin and does a great job summarizing the case for it and provides enough light technical discussion to keep the casual reader interested. The main knock of this book, in my opinion, is the author's (1) excessive bias towards Bitcoin (including only light disussion of it's risks) while blindly dismissing other crypto projects and (2) excessive pessimism towards blockchain technology use cases outside of Bitcoin. Nonetheless I highly recommend this book.

paradigm shift

I loved this book, highly recommended for anyone trying to understand the clown world economy that we live in and what the economy could be with a bitcoin standard.

informative and now I'm a believer

Bitcoin was a fringe topic, but after listening I have high hopes.
The narrator did a good job

best beek I ever listened to!

life changing! it is a must read for any one who cares about money! thanks safe.

Want to understand Bitcoin

Great listen to get a good, very good understanding of money monitary policy and of course Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Education at its Best!

I recommend referring "Noobies" to this book on Bitcoin understanding instead of a person trying to explain this excellent topic & "Coin".

Required reading for Bitcoin newbies

Ammous does an excellent job of explaining the history of money, how we got to where we are, and the possibilities of how Bitcoin would function as the future of money in a digital world. The Bitcoin Standard puts everything in perspective and makes sense of the current cryptocurrency environment.

Recognizing Transformational Knowledge

I can remember when I was young and in school instances whereby I had flash moments of recognizing transformational knowledge, and how that realization of knowledge did indeed transforme me. I looked at things differently. I realized I truly understood some function or factor of life that I could use the rest of my life as a guiding principal. I remember that happening when I learned about fractions, when I learned about molecules reacting together in chemistry, when I learned how to use calculus to calculate the volume of a water tank. More recently, on my own, I have sought and found transformational knowledge in both history and economics. Its not easy, but when you truly find it, everything in your experience suddenly clicks into place and become so clear and obvious that you realize you’ve discovered an amazingly valuable principal. Saifedean Ammous in his book, The Bitcoin Standard, gives all of us some exceptional insights into arguably THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of civilization: Money, the medium of exchange. Before you toss this statement out and just dismiss this book as another bit of hype or hyperbole about Bitcoin, understand this: the first 70% of the book doesn’t even mention Bitcoin. This book is NOT just about Bitcoin. It is about the nature of man, trade, economy, civilization and history, all wrapped into one. It is about gigantic trends over centuries of history and how they impact you and me every living day of our lives. It is written so clearly, so concisely, that you will grasp repeated flashes of transformational knowledge throughout this story. For me, it was hard to put down the book shortly after the Forward by Nassim Taleb, the author of Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder. I ricocheted between “Aa..ha” moments, anger, disgust, swear words and then emotions of joy, deep moral vindication and pleasure and even true elation as I read through this story. Our world society is evolving and using the power of the free market to bend the will of those who usurp society. New technology has revealed pathways that will return great power to every individual living on this planet. It can be very hard to understand great evolving trends in history going on around us as we live our lives day by day. Who understood the value of the computer in 1965?…. or of the Internet in 1990? Saifedean Ammous, PhD, member of the Center of Capitalism and Society at Columbia University and Professor of Economics, pulls the reader back out of everyday life and affords them sweeping views of important mega trends that have the potential to change the fundamental course of history. Such is the power of this book, The Bitcoin Standard. Read it. Be transformed.

Convincing, well argued and arrogant

Saifedan Ammous had me at Bitcoin and proceeded to put forward my favorite Austrian economic arguments as a foundation of his case for digital sound money and Bitcoin.

As a cultural explorer I was taken aback by the authors naive look at culture and it got me thinking that maybe my bias towards the same views as the author on economics and politics would come off as equally naive and arrogant when communicating with traditional experts in the field.

I would have liked the book to have sustained and bolstered my belief that a free society with sound money will prevail to the benefit of our societies and individuals, but in the end I felt like the arrogance with which other experts were dismissed worked against this.

Overall, I find the tone a bit overbearing and arrogant, but that the author manages to compile all important aspects of the core subject matter, in a convincing way.

I recommend the book to anyone interested in money and macroeconomics