Fiat currencies are so 20th century

Richard Nixon fatally wounded government issued money in 1971 by removing the world from the gold standard and ending nearly 700 years of paper money used as an official IOU for gold or other precious metals. Before 1971, the additional production of USD had to (at least partially) coincide with the production of additional Gold. Now, the production of USD costs essentially nothing. The new strategy for monetary policy is to print enough to be able to make your monthly debt payments, while not printing too quickly so that the people in your country lose faith in the currency. Adding to the national debt is a (short-term) non-issue as long as people still believe in your national currency. Faith is the value proposition for today’s government-mandated (fiat) currencies.

But the rules of today’s fiat currencies are stacked against the citizens. Individual citizens don’t have any say in how much currency is created, or how far governments go into debt because governments/central banks control the money that the citizens are mandated to use. Since there is an unlimited potential supply, governments and industries that are “too-big-to-fail,” as designated by the money creators, can be bailed out at any time by just creating more money. This strategy comes at a very high long-term cost for the citizens because printing money is not the same as generating wealth. Citizens experience the repercussions by watching everything around them get more and more expensive. Spending $350,000 on a dilapidated shack in San Francisco means not only that demand for land is very high. It also means that demand for each dollar is getting lower.

Bitcoin permanently solves monetary inflation by removing monetary policy control from individuals and replacing it with rigid software. No matter how much energy is spent in creating new Bitcoins, there will never be more than 21 million unless an overwhelming majority (>95%) of the BTC community agrees, and I will never agree. If you own 50 million satoshis (.5 Bitcoin), you own exactly 1/42 million of the entire Bitcoin network. It’s impossible to measure the fraction of total USD or Euro you own because legacy currencies have no limit to the supply. Nobody is mandating that you use Bitcoin, and any upgrade to the network requires your approval if you choose to fully participate.

Other cryptocurrencies might add additional bells and whistles to Bitcoin and market the functionality as disruptive, but using alternative cryptocurrencies long-term means perpetuating the idea of monetary inflation. There can be an unlimited number of different cryptocurrencies created thanks to Bitcoin’s working solution to the Byzantine General’s problem, but there will forever be only 21 million Bitcoins. Other cryptocurrencies are not disruptive. They accept the status quo; that money can and should be inflated. Making a choice to refuse inflation by using Bitcoin is one of the most profoundly disruptive actions you can take.

Additional Resources:

My guide to getting started with Bitcoin: https://medium.com/@philgeiger/a-gentle-introduction-to-bitcoin-c8f6e55855c1

Find a Bitcoin ATM near you to try it out: CoinATMradar

USD Exchanges/Bitcoin banks: Coinbase, Gemini

Euro Exchanges: Bitonic, Bitstamp

Be your own bank on your phone or computer with a BTC wallet: Android — Samourai, iOS- Edge, from a computer — Electrum