so what caused all the wars before money was printed?
Great question! Wars did happen long before modern money printing — Saifedean has addressed this directly in his books and talks.
Under hard money (like the classical gold standard), governments could only fund wars with actual gold/silver or real taxes. That meant wars were usually much smaller in scale, shorter, and required genuine public commitment.
Rulers had to melt down their own treasures, raise visible taxes, or borrow real savings — resources that ran out fast. It was more difficult and more obvious to force populations into war, though of course it still happened.
Over time people stood against conscription (like in France and England), but printing money made endless war — and war against the population — possible.
The government could now extract wealth from its citizens through inflation and fund war until its people were in financial ruin. You couldn’t have endless, world-spanning conflicts without bankrupting the state or facing revolt.
They were more like limited battles between armies (often “take it outside” and leave civilians mostly alone) rather than total societal destruction.
What Saifedean is explaining in the clip you saw (the one about the money printer and unending wars) is that fiat money printing changed everything.
After governments ditched gold convertibility to fund WWI (and kept printing through the 1920s inflation → Great Depression → WWII), they gained the ability to fund permanent war through hidden inflation — a silent tax that doesn’t require immediate public approval. That’s why he says we got hundreds of millions dead in the last century and why people now think endless war is “normal".
The clip nails it: printing + restricting gold movement = ability to fight “a lot more war".
Bitcoin flips the script and can actually help end (or at least defund) this cycle. With sound money like Bitcoin, governments can’t just print infinite supply to pay for perpetual conflict — they’d have to rely on real taxation again, which quickly hits limits (exactly like pre-1914).
Saifedean has said things like “If we go to Bitcoin… No more war. Game over” because it removes the fuel for the war machine.
Even better, Bitcoin protects individuals in ways no other money can:
• Your entire wealth can be stored in your head as just 12 words (a seed phrase). No vaults, no banks, no suitcases of cash/gold that can be seized.
• Governments literally can’t steal what they can’t find or confiscate — it’s just math in your brain.
• This changes everything for people in war zones (refugees can flee with their life savings memorized, no checkpoints can take it), travelers (cross any border undetected), folks in dangerous neighborhoods or authoritarian regimes (hide it from gangs or the state without needing physical assets), and anyone living under instability.
Saifedean calls Bitcoin “money for peace” for exactly these reasons. It restores the natural brake on state aggression that hard money used to provide, while giving every person real sovereignty. Wars didn’t start with printing, but printing turned them into the endless nightmare we see today — and Bitcoin is the off-switch.
Highly recommend his book The Bitcoin Standard or the full Lex Fridman interview (#284) if you want the deeper dive.
Under hard money (like the classical gold standard), governments could only fund wars with actual gold/silver or real taxes. That meant wars were usually much smaller in scale, shorter, and required genuine public commitment.
Rulers had to melt down their own treasures, raise visible taxes, or borrow real savings — resources that ran out fast. It was more difficult and more obvious to force populations into war, though of course it still happened.
Over time people stood against conscription (like in France and England), but printing money made endless war — and war against the population — possible.
The government could now extract wealth from its citizens through inflation and fund war until its people were in financial ruin. You couldn’t have endless, world-spanning conflicts without bankrupting the state or facing revolt.
They were more like limited battles between armies (often “take it outside” and leave civilians mostly alone) rather than total societal destruction.
What Saifedean is explaining in the clip you saw (the one about the money printer and unending wars) is that fiat money printing changed everything.
After governments ditched gold convertibility to fund WWI (and kept printing through the 1920s inflation → Great Depression → WWII), they gained the ability to fund permanent war through hidden inflation — a silent tax that doesn’t require immediate public approval. That’s why he says we got hundreds of millions dead in the last century and why people now think endless war is “normal".
The clip nails it: printing + restricting gold movement = ability to fight “a lot more war".
Bitcoin flips the script and can actually help end (or at least defund) this cycle. With sound money like Bitcoin, governments can’t just print infinite supply to pay for perpetual conflict — they’d have to rely on real taxation again, which quickly hits limits (exactly like pre-1914).
Saifedean has said things like “If we go to Bitcoin… No more war. Game over” because it removes the fuel for the war machine.
Even better, Bitcoin protects individuals in ways no other money can:
• Your entire wealth can be stored in your head as just 12 words (a seed phrase). No vaults, no banks, no suitcases of cash/gold that can be seized.
• Governments literally can’t steal what they can’t find or confiscate — it’s just math in your brain.
• This changes everything for people in war zones (refugees can flee with their life savings memorized, no checkpoints can take it), travelers (cross any border undetected), folks in dangerous neighborhoods or authoritarian regimes (hide it from gangs or the state without needing physical assets), and anyone living under instability.
Saifedean calls Bitcoin “money for peace” for exactly these reasons. It restores the natural brake on state aggression that hard money used to provide, while giving every person real sovereignty. Wars didn’t start with printing, but printing turned them into the endless nightmare we see today — and Bitcoin is the off-switch.
Highly recommend his book The Bitcoin Standard or the full Lex Fridman interview (#284) if you want the deeper dive.