In The Fiat Standard, world-renowned economist Saifedean Ammous applies his unique analytical lens to the fiat monetary system, explaining it as a feat of engineering and technology just as he did for bitcoin in his global bestseller The Bitcoin Standard.
This time, Ammous delves into the worlds earlier shift from the gold standard to todays system of government-backed fiat moneyoutlining the fiat standards purposes and failures; deriving the wider economic, political, and social implications of its use; and examining how bitcoin will affect it over time.
With penetrating insight, Ammous analyzes global political currencies by analogy to bitcoin: how theyre mined whenever government-guaranteed entities create loans, their lack of inherent restraints on inflation, and the rampant government intervention that has resulted in heavy, devastating, and persistent distortions to global markets for food, fuel, science, and education.
Through these comparisons, Ammous demonstrates that bitcoin could be our next step forwardproviding high salability across space, just like the fiat system, but without the unchecked fiat-denominated debt. Rather than a messy hyperinflationary collapse, the rise of bitcoin could look like a debt jubilee and an orderly upgrade to the worlds monetary operating system, revolutionizing global capital and energy markets.
