## The Bitcoin Standard  ## Metadata - Author: [[Saifedean Ammous]] - Full Title: The Bitcoin Standard - Category: #books ## Highlights - The most astonishing compliment the book received was when Michael Saylor, CEO of publicly traded software intelligence firm Microstrategy, decided to put his company on a bitcoin standard, making bitcoin its prime treasury reserve asset. Mr. Saylor has not only backed his conviction in bitcoin by putting significant amounts of his personal wealth and company treasury in bitcoin, but he has, in a very short period of time, become one of the leading thinkers and analysts of bitcoin, as well as one of its most effective communicators. ([Location 384](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=384)) - The Bitcoin Standard should be required reading for everyone in modern society. It offers a concise, coherent narrative of monetary theory, the history of money, practical economics, and the impact of political policy on business, culture, and the economy. The book contains perhaps one of the best articulations of the virtues of strong money and the dangers of weak currency yet presented in modern business literature. The Bitcoin Standard also masterfully debunks the myths of modern monetary theory and the broken ideas that have dominated the fiat economic school of thought since the early twentieth century. ([Location 424](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=424)) - The Bitcoin Standard is my first recommendation for those seeking a holistic appreciation of the economic theory, political history, and technological developments that have driven the growth of the bitcoin network and define its future trajectory. It is suitable for individuals, investors, executives, technologists, politicians, journalists, and academics alike, regardless of their agenda. Bitcoin is the world's first digital monetary network. Bitcoin is also the world's first engineered monetary asset. Together, these traits represent the most disruptive technology in the world, the greatest opportunity currently available to those who wish to create something new and wonderful, and the solution to the store-of-value problem faced by 7.8 billion people, 100+ million companies, and hundreds of trillions of dollars of investor capital. ([Location 436](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=436)) - Bitcoin can be best understood as distributed software that allows for transfer of value using a currency protected from unexpected inflation without relying on trusted third parties. In other words, bitcoin automates the functions of a modern central bank and makes them predictable and virtually immutable by programming them into code decentralized among thousands of network members, none of whom can alter the code without the consent of the rest. This makes bitcoin the first demonstrably reliable operational example of digital cash and digital hard money. ([Location 473](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=473)) - As it must, the first part of the book explains money, its function and properties. As an economist with an engineering background, I have always sought to understand a technology in terms of the problems it purports to solve, which allows for the identification of its functional essence and its separation from incidental, cosmetic, and insignificant characteristics. ([Location 484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=484)) - By understanding the problems money attempts to solve, it becomes possible to elucidate what makes for sound and unsound money, and to apply that conceptual framework to understand how and why various goods, such as seashells, beads, metals, and government money, have served the function of money, and how and why they may have failed at it or served society's purposes to store value and exchange it. ([Location 486](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=486)) - 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. ([Location 490](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=490)) - Money is the information and measurement system of an economy, and sound money is what allows trade, investment, and entrepreneurship to proceed on a solid basis, whereas unsound money throws these processes into disarray. Sound money is also an essential element of a free society as it provides for an effective bulwark against despotic government. ([Location 492](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07BPM3GZQ&location=492))