Gold Equilibrium
Why the U.S. could return to a gold standard at $1300/oz without risk of inflation or deflation There are two prices of gold. There is the market spot price of gold (POG) and an optimum POG which represents the price…
Read more
Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency
Notes on The Bitcoin Standard II
George Gilder sent me a pre-publication draft of The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous. We exchanged many emails on the topic of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. This is Part II of my reply to George after reviewing The Bitcoin Standard. *…
Read more
Notes on The Bitcoin Standard
George Gilder’s new book, Life After Google, is out today. In October 2017 George sent me a draft of Saifedean Ammous’ book, The Bitcoin Standard. I was excited to read Saifedean’s draft because Bitcoin offers tremendous promise. I quickly realized that…
Read more
Cryptocurrency Paradox
Cryptocurrency’s value comes from its fixed supply, deflationary design combined with the promise of digital, decentralized transactions recorded on a permanent blockchain ledger. But its flawed monetary design, that is the underlying reason for its value, makes it unsuitably volatile…
Read more
The Flawed Monetary Theory of Craig Wright Part II
In Part I, I examined Wright’s monetary views expressed in The illusion of scale in segregated witness. It is a rehash of Friedman’s failed monetarism experiment of the 70s, with fixed money supply instead of constant supply. Monetarism without an…
Read more
The Flawed Monetary Theory of Craig Wright
Craig Wright, the Australian mathematician and serial academic credential achiever, is widely associated as Satoshi Nakamoto. Andrew O’Hagan wrote The Satoshi Affair, a long account of the events leading up to Wright’s public failure to prove he is Satoshi. Wright…
Read more
Cryptocurrency Market Valuation
While an increasing cryptocurrency market valuation is indicative of greater acceptance, it does not define its legitimacy as currency. In other words, a currency’s legitimacy is not based on its market valuation but rather on its potential for stability of…
Read more
The Promise of Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency is money, not a rare artifact of speculative value. Decentralized issuance beyond the control of government or central banks is the essential tenet and attraction of cryptocurrency. The immutable, public ledger blockchain provides the foundation for peer-to-peer commerce in…
Read more
Money, Commodities, and Bitcoin
Money has three roles; a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. A unit of account is the most important role of money and the least understood. A unit of account is a monetary standard of reference. …
Read more
The Problem with Bitcoin
The primary utility of any currency is as a unit of account. Its other roles are a store of value and medium of exchange. The unit of account is a monetary standard of measure. It is a reference upon which…
Read more