2026-01-05T04:15:40Z https://nostr.now Michael Wilkins https://nostr.now/npub1qhfq3d2wmeuzrrynwfpd73vcx7xj7k6rh3qstd2lfvve5m7ahauq3zruvy https://blossom.primal.net/be462293f4d27ebc0e5fd6e8b52d68d2870b34e731d5da8c2878980d2a0754c7.jpg https://blossom.primal.net/be462293f4d27ebc0e5fd6e8b52d68d2870b34e731d5da8c2878980d2a0754c7.jpg https://nostr.now/nevent1qqswsgwqhs7v9vz5fd2y557938xlklpx4ls5f84akfy3wr5qgpf4alszyqzayz94fm08sgvvjdey9h69nqmc6t6mgw7yzpd4ta93nxn0mklhsc3tf8g In reply to <a href='/nevent1qqsrh9daupdyql858er02u8mcl43dpjw2leh5gxx9f4lzpj6ffg6j0csmetmk'>nevent1q…etmk</a><br/>_________________________<br/><br/>Honestly I think Switzerland is the closest country to running a proper democracy. Everyone else pretends they have democracy but they don’t. 2026-02-14T08:53:38Z https://nostr.now/nevent1qqs95xx5cfaql0y35ngpsc5dgkpe3ddfc5nprpu86jrdmd2w37e5lpszyqzayz94fm08sgvvjdey9h69nqmc6t6mgw7yzpd4ta93nxn0mklhsn9u3jm After 10+ years and 30,000+ hours of studying the history of money, monetary failures, hard money systems, Austrian economics, and Bitcoin, a few conclusions become unavoidable.<br/><br/>Money is not created by decree.<br/>It emerges as a coordination tool.<br/>Societies converge on the hardest available money because it best preserves time, labour, and energy.<br/><br/>Throughout history, money has followed a pattern:<br/><br/>• Collectible goods become media of exchange.<br/>• The most durable, scarce, and verifiable forms outcompete the rest.<br/>• States later monopolise issuance.<br/>• Debasement follows.<br/>• Trust erodes.<br/>• The system resets.<br/><br/>This cycle has repeated for thousands of years.<br/><br/>Gold was not chosen because it was shiny.<br/>It was chosen because it was hard to produce, difficult to counterfeit, and costly to debase.<br/>Those properties constrained rulers and protected savers.<br/><br/>The abandonment of hard money did not happen because it “failed.”<br/>It happened because it limited political spending.<br/><br/>Fiat currency is not money in the historical sense.<br/>It is a credit instrument backed by future taxation and enforced by law.<br/>Its supply must expand to service the debt it creates.<br/>This is not a flaw. It is the design.<br/><br/>Credit creation changes behaviour.<br/><br/>New money enters the economy through specific channels:<br/>• Governments<br/>• Banks<br/>• Asset markets<br/><br/>Those closest to issuance benefit first.<br/>Those furthest away pay through rising prices and declining purchasing power.<br/><br/>Productivity gains no longer flow primarily to savers or workers.<br/>They are absorbed by asset inflation.<br/><br/>This is why wages lag prices.<br/>This is why savings no longer work.<br/>This is why speculation outcompetes production.<br/><br/>Austrian economics does not oppose growth.<br/>It explains growth.<br/><br/>Real growth comes from:<br/>• Capital accumulation<br/>• Productivity improvements<br/>• Time preference discipline<br/><br/>Hard money forces growth to appear as falling prices and rising purchasing power, not monetary expansion.<br/><br/>Under sound money, progress benefits everyone.<br/>Under fiat money, progress is unevenly distributed.<br/><br/>Bitcoin is not an innovation in finance.<br/>It is an innovation in monetary integrity.<br/><br/>Bitcoin did not invent scarcity.<br/>It enforced it digitally, without trust.<br/><br/>Bitcoin is:<br/>• Fixed in supply<br/>• Permissionless<br/>• Verifiable by anyone<br/>• Independent of political systems<br/><br/>It does not promise yield.<br/>It does not promise returns.<br/>It does not guarantee adoption.<br/><br/>It simply removes monetary discretion.<br/><br/>Bitcoin does not succeed because its fiat price rises.<br/>Its fiat price rises because fiat units lose purchasing power and more fiat flows into a fixed system.<br/><br/>Price is not value.<br/>Value is preserved purchasing power over time.<br/><br/>Bitcoin exposes this distinction.<br/><br/>Most confusion comes from mixing frameworks:<br/>• Treating Bitcoin as an investment instead of money<br/>• Measuring success in fiat terms<br/>• Expecting monetary neutrality from a debt-based system<br/><br/>Paper Bitcoin, custodial claims, ETFs, and derivatives reintroduce the very trust Bitcoin was designed to remove.<br/>They may increase liquidity and price discovery, but they weaken monetary sovereignty.<br/><br/>Self-custody matters.<br/>Running a node matters.<br/>Using Bitcoin matters.<br/><br/>Money that is not used eventually becomes controlled.<br/><br/>The long arc is clear:<br/>• Fiat systems require perpetual expansion.<br/>• Expansion erodes trust.<br/>• Trust loss drives capital toward harder money.<br/><br/>This is not ideological.<br/>It is structural.<br/><br/>Bitcoin is not a revolution.<br/>It is a reversion.<br/><br/>A return to money that cannot be altered, censored, or debased.<br/><br/>Whether it succeeds depends not on price, institutions, or narratives,<br/>but on whether people choose to use it as money.<br/><br/>Hard constraints produce honest systems.<br/>Honest systems produce long-term progress.<br/><br/>That is the conclusion.<br/><br/>#Bitcoin #AustrianEconomics #HistoryOfMoney #Money 2026-01-05T21:25:32Z