Last Updated: 22 July 2022
Another Dutch bitcoin book translation is ready! Following the popular De Bitcoin Standaard, this time, it is another book by Saifedean Ammous: The Fiat Standaard.
🇳🇱 We are looking for fresh eyes to read through the Fiat Standard in #Dutch
Find the last errors and see that everything is in its place. Get the free copy, when the book is out from print.
E-mail info@konsensus.network @st4rnold @m__btc @Prufrock94
— Konsensus Network (@KonsensusN) April 25, 2022
The Fiat Standard
The book is structured similarly to The Bitcoin Standard. But while Ammous looks at bitcoin through the lens of gold (and monetary history as a whole) and the saleability of money over time, he does so slightly differently in The Fiat Standard.
You will read how the bitcoin network and bitcoin mining have parallels with the fiat network and fiat mining.
The latter consists of one node (a central bank), and has no transparent issuance schedule due to complex lending and quantifiable ways to measure inflation. Step by step, Ammous explains how this works.
Also, fiat money has ‘negative balances,’ something that does not exist in bitcoin. Shadow banking, fractional reserve banking, and deflationary phobia are topics that are discussed.
The author looks at government-issued fiat money and describes how it emerged because of its properties in terms of saleability over distance.
Or, in other words: the ease with which you can send it (compared to gold) to the other side of the world without spending much on transport, security, and verification costs.
Fiat Life
However, this fiat money also has its drawbacks. In part 2, entitled Fiat Leven, Ammous describes how unsecured government money impacts the food market, science, fuels, the energy market, and governments.
Then the Lebanese economist outlines (in Part 3) how bitcoin is the Fiat Liquidator. Bitcoin is money with both marketability over distance (like fiat money) and marketability over time (like gold), making it a superior form of money.
“Rather than a messy hyperinflationary collapse, the rise of bitcoin could look like a debt jubilee and a systematic improvement in the world’s monetary system, revolutionising global capital and energy markets.”
The subtitle “Debt slavery as an alternative to human civilisation” shows how Ammous’ view of fiat money is: it holds everyone in its grip because it has a massive influence on a huge number of areas — schools, diet, family, architecture, wars, and so on.
Curious? You can buy the book at konsensus.network. By using the discount code st4rnold, you receive a 10% discount. If you pay with bitcoin, you get an additional 10% off.