Money is not a social construct decided by vote.
It is a tool that emerges through use.
Across history, societies have repeatedly discovered that certain properties are required for money to function over time: scarcity, durability, divisibility, verifiability, and resistance to manipulation. The forms of money that lacked these properties were eventually abandoned. The ones that possessed them endured.
Gold became money not because it was declared so, but because it was difficult to produce, easy to verify, and could not be created at will. These constraints mattered. They limited the ability of rulers to dilute value and forced economic growth to come from productivity rather than monetary expansion.
Fiat currency began as a claim on hard money. Over time, that constraint was removed. In 1971, money became fully elastic, issued by policy rather than bound by scarcity. From that point on, money ceased to function as a reliable store of value and became a tool for managing debt, growth targets, and short-term stability.
The consequences are structural, not accidental:
purchasing power erosion, asset inflation, rising debt, and increasing reliance on financialisation rather than production.
Bitcoin was not designed to optimise payments, speculation, or short-term returns. It was designed to reintroduce monetary discipline in a digital world. Its supply is fixed. Its issuance is predictable. Its rules are enforced by a network, not by discretion or authority.
This makes Bitcoin different from currencies, equities, or commodities. It is a monetary system governed by rules rather than trust.
Bitcoin does not promise economic equality or volatility-free markets. It simply restores a property money once had: the inability to be debased.
Throughout history, harder forms of money have eventually replaced softer ones, not through force or persuasion, but through reliability over time. Bitcoin represents the first digitally native attempt at hard money.
It is not a rebellion against the system.
It is a response to the limits of the current one.
Understanding Bitcoin begins with understanding money.
#Bitcoin #Money #HistoryOfMoney #Economics #Finance
It is a tool that emerges through use.
Across history, societies have repeatedly discovered that certain properties are required for money to function over time: scarcity, durability, divisibility, verifiability, and resistance to manipulation. The forms of money that lacked these properties were eventually abandoned. The ones that possessed them endured.
Gold became money not because it was declared so, but because it was difficult to produce, easy to verify, and could not be created at will. These constraints mattered. They limited the ability of rulers to dilute value and forced economic growth to come from productivity rather than monetary expansion.
Fiat currency began as a claim on hard money. Over time, that constraint was removed. In 1971, money became fully elastic, issued by policy rather than bound by scarcity. From that point on, money ceased to function as a reliable store of value and became a tool for managing debt, growth targets, and short-term stability.
The consequences are structural, not accidental:
purchasing power erosion, asset inflation, rising debt, and increasing reliance on financialisation rather than production.
Bitcoin was not designed to optimise payments, speculation, or short-term returns. It was designed to reintroduce monetary discipline in a digital world. Its supply is fixed. Its issuance is predictable. Its rules are enforced by a network, not by discretion or authority.
This makes Bitcoin different from currencies, equities, or commodities. It is a monetary system governed by rules rather than trust.
Bitcoin does not promise economic equality or volatility-free markets. It simply restores a property money once had: the inability to be debased.
Throughout history, harder forms of money have eventually replaced softer ones, not through force or persuasion, but through reliability over time. Bitcoin represents the first digitally native attempt at hard money.
It is not a rebellion against the system.
It is a response to the limits of the current one.
Understanding Bitcoin begins with understanding money.
#Bitcoin #Money #HistoryOfMoney #Economics #Finance