The Bitcoin Standard

Why I picked this up

The clearest “why does money hardness matter” framing I’d seen in one volume. I wanted the economic history more than the Bitcoin part.

Ideas that stayed with me

1. Money as information — it coordinates value across time between strangers. That’s the function everything else hangs off.
2. Hard vs. easy money — the cost of producing money shapes the behavior of everyone holding it.
3. Time preference as a lens — the claim that softer money correlates with higher time preference is debated, but as a lens it’s genuinely useful for reading decisions, including mine.

Things I disagreed with

The author’s certainty. The economic history is compelling; the ideological certainty stacked on top of it is not. Where the book is right, it doesn’t need the sermon, and where it’s arguable, the sermon is doing a lot of load-bearing work.

(Not financial advice — a book’s arguments are not a recommendation for anyone’s money decisions.)

Where it’s connecting

Mostly as a reading lens for money narratives — when a story about money gets loud, I re-read my notes here. It sharpened the questions I ask about money more than it answered them.

Would I recommend it?

For the first half — the history of money — yes, it’s excellent. For the rest, read it with your guard up and enjoy arguing with it.