The Bitcoin bookshelf

Four books that explain why people care about hard money, from technology and deflation to the history of money. Summaries are our own.

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Jeff Booth · about 6 h read

The Price of Tomorrow

Why Deflation is the Key to an Abundant Future

Booth argues that technology keeps pushing the cost of making things down, while a debt-based money system needs constant inflation to survive. He makes the case for hard money that lets falling prices reach people as abundance.

Key ideas

• Technology is naturally deflationary.
• Debt-based money needs continuous inflation, which widens inequality.
• Falling prices from efficiency should be welcomed, not feared.
• Hard money lets savers keep the gains from technology.

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Saifedean Ammous · about 8 h read

The Bitcoin Standard

The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

A history of money from shells and salt to gold and paper currency, arguing that societies do better on hard money and that Bitcoin's fixed supply makes it a candidate for a digital store of value.

Key ideas

• Sound money encourages long-term thinking (low time preference).
• Easy money lets governments run deficits at savers' expense.
• Bitcoin's difficulty adjustment keeps new supply on a fixed schedule.
• Scarcity on its own is not a guarantee of value; adoption matters.

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Knut Svanholm · about 3 h read

Bitcoin: Sovereignty through Mathematics

Why Bitcoin is a discovery, not an invention

A short, philosophical look at digital scarcity, property rights and proof-of-work, and why the author thinks Bitcoin is closer to a discovery than an invention.

Key ideas

• Bitcoin's rules are enforced by software and math, not by courts.
• Proof-of-work ties digital scarcity to real-world energy.
• Copies lack the original's network effect.
• Self-custody is what makes the property rights real.

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Parker Lewis · about 5 h read

Gradually, Then Suddenly

A framework for understanding Bitcoin as money

An essay series, also published as a book, that explains money as a coordination tool and argues that monetary transitions happen slowly at first and then all at once.

Key ideas

• Money coordinates time and resources; it isn't wealth itself.
• Central planning of interest rates creates imbalances.
• Fixed supply removes the dilution problem for savers.
• Monetary change tends to be gradual, then sudden.

Find on Amazon.co.uk Amazon.de