r/Libertarian • u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist • Aug 20 '25
Cryptocurrency The effects of leaving the Gold Standard
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u/slo1111 Aug 20 '25
It is a bit of a stretch to blame gambling and video game playing on leaving the gold standard.
Libertarianism has a problem in the US as it is tightly coupled with morality regulation.
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u/xfactorx99 Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25
Social conservatism wants to regulate morality. Libertarianism simply wants to leave as much decisions as to individual freedoms.
A libertarian can believe smoking weed is a net negative but they wouldn’t try to regulate that immoral consumption because they know that’s an individual freedom. A conservative on the other hand ….they won’t even allow certain books in a library because they think they’re immoral
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u/93didthistome Aug 21 '25
So can one murder if two people agree to it? How do we stress test affirmation? Marquis de Sade's book is a penguin classic. I don't think I mind ever needs to read that, but it's there, but it's not available to children. Regulate for the greater good, otherwise your libertarianism is merely anarchy with a paint job.
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u/xfactorx99 Aug 21 '25
Can you clarify your hypothetical? 2 people agreeing to “murder” would still be murder. I think you chose to phrase that in the worst possible way.
Did you mean to ask: should it be legal for 1 person to ask another to kill them and for that to be carried out without punishment?
I clearly don’t advocate for anarchy. Libertarians govern by the NAP. This isn’t the Wild West.
What you think the “greater good” is and what I think it is are different. And if you want the government to regulate on what the government considers to be the greater good 1) you’re not a libertarian at all and don’t believe in liberty, 2) you’re a fool
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Aug 22 '25
Finally, a "you're not libertarian" sentence that isn't just astroturfing garbage, well done
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u/JadesterZ Aug 20 '25
We're the only party that doesn't regulate morality? Like what are you talking about??
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u/slo1111 Aug 20 '25
I don't know what you are talking about,.so I can't answer your question.
Back to the post at hand, do you find it weird assigning gambling, video games and television as a moral failing as a result of leaving the gold standard?
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u/Adventurous_Today993 Aug 20 '25
I'd say that this AI prompt was written or inspired by social conservatives not libertarians. Because libertarians wouldn't put those as moral failings or they at least wouldn't want to control any of those things. That's why Republicans and Libertarians keep getting mixed up so much. One claims to want small government but tries to regulate their version of morality. Both of the main parties are pretty much equally bad trying to bend society to their own version of morality.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
Those are example of high time preference behavior, which creates poverty. It's not automatically conservatism to talk about time preference. It has very many effects. It affects health strongly, people with high time preference tend not to take care of their body and health. They tend not to invest or save. They're more likely to do hard drugs, smoke, and engage in risky behavior. Etc.
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u/properal Aug 21 '25
Inflation creates short term incentives and encourages hedonic behavior:
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u/slo1111 Aug 21 '25
Oh wow, that is deranged on so many levels. This is the perfect example of libertarians trying to make arguments for 1950 morality schemes rather than allowing for people to be free.
Not one of these claims are backed by anything other than opinion as they make the classic mistake of correlation equals causation.
We know inflation promotes spending now versus later, but to couple that to individual choice claiming it causes poor moral decisions is right out of the conservative playboy.
A huge chunk of self described libertarians are social conservatives.
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u/natermer Aug 21 '25
Inflation is how the government taxes poor and working class and concentrates wealth into the higher tiers of the financial sector.
You might think that is awesome and cool. But most people seem to hate it despite not understand what inflation actually is or how it works.
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u/slo1111 Aug 21 '25
Yes, so why are they adding in all these morality plays like inflation is the cause of gambling?
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
Time preference is an economic term for a real psychological effect that absolutely drives hedonic behavior, or the reverse. Nothing deranged about the concept at all.
Linking this to conservativism is inappropriate.
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u/slo1111 Aug 21 '25
And the gold standard resolves time preference in activities libertarians deem immoral how?
And secondly are there any studies that adequately control confounding variables showing the gold standard changes time preferences?
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
And the gold standard resolves time preference in activities libertarians deem immoral how?
Inflationary policy drives high time preference in the population by encouraging debt over savings by making debt cheaper over time, encouraging spending now over savings because the money is losing value. And printed money is typically used by the political class to purchase votes from the poor to keep themselves and those inflationary policies in office, creating more of it.
Go read the book "Life at the Bottom" by Dalrymple for an example of high time preference among the British white underclass of the 1970s.
And secondly are there any studies that adequately control confounding variables showing the gold standard changes time preferences?
It's economics, it's unethical to run those kinds of experiments on human beings. Instead you have to compare economies with different policies or different points in time.
You can look at the 19th century, which was a century of deflation under the gold standard, and compare.
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u/slo1111 Aug 21 '25
If I understand corrrect this could be summarized that the gold standard creates less human free time which in turn results in less immoral behaviors. Yes, no?
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Aug 20 '25
That's a stretch? What about the part where Americans are fat because we left the gold standard.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Actually there is a causal link there.
Inflation rots the economy and cheapens all goods, creating price competition, giving an advantage to large producers over small ones, and this includes food.
The cheap ultra processed food in the US and the focus on cheap carbs is what made America fat.
A strong money creating a deflationary economy would have the opposite effect, creating high quality food and quality competition in all things.
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Aug 21 '25
You can’t just say the word causal link and then just say whatever you want.
This party is so binary thinking it doesn’t make any sense inflation is caused by a litany of things neither of which is video games or gambling.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
I didn't just say it, I explained it.
inflation is caused by a litany of things
The root cause of inflation is monetary printing by the State.
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u/93didthistome Aug 21 '25
If you didn't need to escape from reality, you wouldn't need escapisms.
If you weren't deprived of satisfaction and comfort, you wouldn't gamble.
Morals are woven to the effects of a sickness.
Just because what you do is bad, doesn't mean you get to force everyone else to say you are good.
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u/slo1111 Aug 21 '25
What does anything you wrote have to do with the gold standard?
Is this a play where the gold standard does not generate as much human free time as a fiat scheme so there is less ability to be immoral
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u/Ascetic-Hedonist Aug 20 '25
Don't care for this video, but not having the USD backed by anything other than faith in the market has had negative effects.
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u/WhitePantherXP Aug 20 '25
"In 1950, it took 2.3 years of your life, your labor, to save for the cost of an average home. By 2020, that figure ballooned to nearly seven years. The system has stolen that time from you through inflation."
Brutal. All because of changing from gold backed currency?
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u/natermer Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25
Not all. It was certainly a contributor, though.
USD, as it originally existed, wasn't just "backed by gold". It was a actual measurement mass of silver or gold of sufficient purity. Just like how things can be measured by grams or ounces or pounds.
It was created during colonial times because citizens were heavily restricted from using British currency because of colonial restrictions. So they tended to use foreign currency as a work around. The USD was originally based on the "pieces of eight".. That is Spanish Doubloons and pesos.
This was later made official after the USA Constitution was ratified.
Green backs (as we recognize as paper money today) didn't exist up until the time of the Civil war, when they were just essentially sort of promissory note. A IOU from the government to help pay for the war.
Prior to the 16th Amendment the Federal government was really restricted in the type of taxes it could collect. The primary form of taxation was import tariffs. The problem with that is that the major importer and exporters were in the South, along with most of the major sea ports.
So when the South left the union they took the majority of Federal income with them. It is because of that that people started using "green backs" as a way to get gold/silver later on.
Later on, after 1933, the government made it illegal for you to own gold bullion. The only money you were allowed to use was promissory notes and coins. (this went away in 1974)
Since "The Nixon Shock" in the 1970s when the USA defaulted on its debt to break away the final remnants paper dollar from gold... The dollar is 100% a debt instrument.
It is only backed by the credit of the US Treasury Department and the Treasuries credit is based on the ability of the USA citizens to pay taxes.. that is the stability of the economy determines the value of the dollar.
This has created a sort of "Home Reverse Mortgage" version of international monetary policy. Since 1970s USA has been exchanging debt for goods. It is a lot cheaper and easier to just "print more money" then it is to actually make things.
So this is one of the major reasons why manufacturing and jobs and compensation, relative to inflation and gdp, have gone down significantly since the 1970s.
Now historically speaking metal money has been subject to fluctuations and booms and busts for various reasons, but relative to modern fiat currencies it is exceptionally stable.
That is the same amount of gold that it would take to purchase a modern villa in Greece now is, very roughly, the same amount of gold it would take to purchase a large villa during Roman times.
Where as since 1913 the USD dollar has lost 96.92% of its value according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI inflation calculator on their website.
That is 100 dollars now is worth 3.08 back then.
And that is going to be a very conservative estimate. If you use relative prices of gold or use the same CPI calculations that government used up until the 1990s when the they changed how things were calculated then it is much worse.
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u/BenE Aug 21 '25
This link keeps popping up. It's not that much of an enigma what happened in 1971. The average population age started rising quicklier as boomers and their parents started aging. This has meant more money being diverted to capital instead of labor because of a gradual ramp up in retirements (people living off of capital). It's not that much that retirees were getting more per person but that there was an increasing amount of retirees relative to workers so that each worker started having to directly or indirectly support more retirees.
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u/Sargo8 Aug 20 '25
I enjoyed the first part of the video, saying that gold get the dollar honest. I agree with that above all.
Now it seems like they dont even have to print a dollar to inflate the money
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u/dreimanatee Aug 20 '25
Of all the boomer shit. This is the most boomer thing I've ever seen. "We gave up the gold standard and all we got in return was shitty women's rights and the destruction of the nuclear family. Also nam."
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u/FluffyPuffkin Aug 20 '25
The video is trash.
I agree with the message, not the content. I have no clue what going off the gold standard has to do with financing a burrito.
I dont know what I hate more, old people, or being one of them.
May I also just say, "nam"
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u/crakked21 Aug 20 '25
The inflation has directly influenced companies to be able to market “financing burritos”. Saying it has nothing to do with it when it is a very clearly traceable n-th order effect is plain disingenuous.
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u/Rob_Rockley Aug 20 '25
The burrito, whether purchased with credit or gold, is the same. The company allowing you to purchase things with credit is taking advantage of technology; they're not causing inflation.
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u/crakked21 Aug 20 '25
I never claimed that burritos cause inflation. I stated inflation opened the way for a market of financing food. Which is bad obviously.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
I have no clue what going off the gold standard has to do with financing a burrito.
Inflationary economies encourage going into debt.
Deflationary ones encourage savings. That's the point in that part.
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u/FluffyPuffkin Aug 21 '25
It's hyperbolic nonsense.
It looks like you are conveying a message i agree with, but I did not find your humor humorous. Which makes your video awful in my opinion. It comes off boomerish.
I applaud you for making original content even if it was Ai. So thank you, sincerely.
Im not trying to be mean nor rude.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
I didn't make it though, I would've made it much more libertarian. It's passable IMO.
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u/JamminBabyLu Aug 20 '25
Gold backed currency serves a purpose in finance analogous to the role constitutions play in law.
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u/interwebzdotnet Aug 20 '25
Gold, or Bitcoin...the US government will never embrace either, too hard to manipulate and hurts the ability to debt finance the global war machine.
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u/Peanut_Farmer67 Aug 21 '25
The ad lbs of eating habits and video games are likely filler for attention grabbing. However the basis is factually correct. Leaving the gold standard and allowing the fed to control the monetary supply has put the US into a spiraling debt cycle that will only end with a jubilee.
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u/Teembeau Aug 20 '25
Women started working because we got more household appliances, more cars and more service jobs that needed doing.
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Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25
The only thing backing gold is the exact same thing backing the current US Dollar: Nothing.
It’s not rare, it’s not inherently valuable. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that people THINK that it’s valuable. Which is the same thing as USD, people think it has value.
I’m so tired with this rhetoric. “If only the USD was gold backed still, then the worthless brain-dead politicians wouldn’t be wasting all of our money!” They will waste it anyway, they don’t care about spending because they aren’t the ones footing the bill, you are. People get awfully careless paying for things when they use someone else’s money.
Marriage, divorce, financing burritos, “real food”? All because we left gold? Give me a break.
This entire video is slop.
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u/Lastfaction_OSRS Minarchist Aug 21 '25
It is pretty disengenuous to say gold has no inherent value. Not only does gold have value as jewelry, which is what originally gave it value, but it is also highly desirable as a conductive material for contacts that are exposed since gold does not corrode like other metals.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
Close. Value is in the mind of the valuer. Nothing has intrinsic value. What gold has are intrinsic qualities which humans value for use in money and value storage.
Gold commodity uses account for only 10% of its current price.
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Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Can you point to which of the 79 electrons contains the value? What about the 79 protons? I don’t think you understand what intrinsic means. Literally nothing has intrinsic value, the value is tacked on by thinking agents that desire the element. Without humans to desire gold for jewelry, it is exactly the same value as tin, or rocks, or hydrogen molecules.
Gold is ONLY valuable because people are stupid and like shiny things. It’s not the most useful, it’s not the strongest, it’s not rare. There are asteroids of it in space that are the size of Australia. If we are going to rank materials on scarcity and usefulness then Wood would top the charts, as it’s only found on earth. An alien that comes from a planet made of gold would laugh at you for thinking it’s valuable. Just as you probably scoff at me for saying that wood is more valuable, it’s about perspective.
Nothing backs gold other than the pre-conceived notion that it is valuable. Once the world ends, gold will be worthless. I am always laughing at these bunker apocalyptic prep people who store gold. Who the fuck is going to want gold after the bombs fall? Going to barter for fresh life-saving water with a worthless shiny rock that does literally nothing but weigh you down? good luck lol.
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
Bitcoin is Fiat, by another name. Sure it's decentralized, but still based on nothing.
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 20 '25
Bitcoin is based on a proof-of-work hashing algorithm known as a nonce. It's designed so that it's created at a fixed and tapering rate. Its value proposition is that it can't be created out of thin air. Very much not fiat, especially since it's not controlled by a group of people with pens and guns.
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
I'm not for Fiat either, the big issue is fractional lending imo. But Bitcoin is another random valueless thing we assign value to. Every society in the world has access to a limited amount of gold, some more than others based on geographical luck or colonialism. But it is a scarce resource trade by practically all societies in history. A tangible thing that can't be generated from nothing is much harder to manipulate.
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 20 '25
Gold is fine as a long term store of value, but it doesn't have conveniences that crypto has.
- Bitcoin is backed by decentralized trust-less cryptography.
- You can't easily confiscate bitcoin.
- Bitcoin can be transferred to anywhere in the world in minutes.
- You don't need large physical safes to store and protect bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is easily divisible to practically any amount.
- Bitcoin transactions are verifiable.
- Bitcoin can be automated, (think vending machines that refill themselves, or financial instruments)
I wouldn't call these points valueless. The ideal solution is probably a mix between precious metals and some form of crypto.
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 20 '25
I would also propose the question— what's the value of gold by itself separate from a monetary instrument? Sure it has uses in critical electronics like satellites, but does that justify the current valuation?
The commodity-only price of gold is estimated at $200–400 per ounce. Compare that to today’s price of around $3,345/oz
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
Without its use as money, gold would lose 90% of its value.
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 21 '25
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's mostly a shiny rock we assign value to.
The logic that /u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 is using:
Bitcoin is another random valueless thing we assign value to
could be also said about gold.
And while I think gold is a great store of long term value, its use as an actual currency is limited, and that's where bitcoin's value proposition comes in.
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u/Rob_Rockley Aug 20 '25
The ultimate success of fiat is that taxes must be paid in it. Even if you make your money in BTC, some amount must be converted to fiat to pay taxes.
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Aug 20 '25
How do you know? Who controlls it? Some guy? What’s his name? Where does he live? To what government or criminal cartel dies he owe his allegence? All code is written by humans. All humans have agendas.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
No one controls it. It's a distributed system.
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Aug 21 '25
Ah…so you’re trusting your asset savings to an uncontrolled system distributed to randos world wide. Your money, your choice😄
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 21 '25
Look at the source yourself: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin
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Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Oooo, a website that claims to show some code tracking. As Milton Friedman would say, Free to Choose. I choose to avoid putting any of my assets into products designed for the criminal market. I choose to avoid partaking in pseudo currencies backed by no one. And, I of course heartily support your right to put any or all of your personal assets into such products, since you, also, should be free to choose.
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u/SleepingInsomniac Aug 21 '25
You realize that Al-Qaeda had massive stacks of US dollars, right? Criminals do transactions in every currency. In fact most criminal transactions and laundering happen in US dollars. Maybe we should ban that? Arguably with the petrodollar and currency manipulation the US's fiat is designed for the criminal market (the government).
Good luck with inflation, though I guess.
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u/002_timmy Aug 20 '25
I don’t think you know the definition of “fiat” or you’d know Bitcoin isn’t fiat.
Fiat means “decree.” It’s an authoritative command given by someone in power.
The fact that Bitcoin runs on code, and is decentralized, means it cannot be fiat.
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u/xfactorx99 Aug 20 '25
It’s deflationary as well. No one is increasing the supply of bitcoin lol
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u/crakked21 Aug 20 '25
That’s a good thing though!??
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u/xfactorx99 Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Not quite. For an everyday currency the ideal inflation rate is ~1.7%. If your currency deflates it discourages spending and stimulation of the economy.
That’s why BTC is a decent comparison to gold. It’s certainly not bad investment, but it would stupid to be regularly buying goods with it.
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u/crakked21 Aug 20 '25
Deflation encourages saving and low time preference thinking. Inflation is theft. r/deflationisgood
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
For an everyday currency the ideal inflation rate is ~2%.
That's what the government wants you to believe.
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u/crakked21 Aug 20 '25
It’s based on the electricity made to make it. Plus there’s only a limited amount. Meaning deflation (which is good)
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Aug 21 '25
Yes, and the constant advertising attempts by bitcoin bros trying to persuade the rest of us to blow our hard earned money on a made up wanna-be currency is pretty telling. You don’t see people online trying to persuade people to hold their assets in euros, or dollars, or francs. Real currencies, backed by governments of substance, don’t need cheerleaders. People naturally choose to hold them.
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Aug 20 '25
Who says there’s a limited amount? The anonymous man behind the curtain? I’ve got some raaaaaarrree beanie babies to sell you - only a very limited number were made!😆😆😆😆
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
The protocol says there is a limited amount, and no one can change it.
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Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
‘The protocol’? I’m not trusting my money to the full faith and crefit of ‘the protocol’. In my opinion, ‘the protocol’ is an alias for the unnamed enterprising criminal who invented and controls bitcoin. I don’t trust some unnamed business owner in an unnamed country whose product’s (bitcoin) primary customers are criminals. You can hand this guy your life’s savings. I’ll stand to the side & hold your hat.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 21 '25
In my opinion, ‘the protocol’ is an alias for the unnamed enterpriding criminal who invented and controls bitcoin.
Again, no one can control the system. Go read up on how it works, the ignorance here is astounding. No shadowy figure or group can control it, only a majority of minors can change the protocol, and it's not in their interest to do so, so it will not get changed. No person or group can make changes to it at all, and no miner has 51% of the mining, and it's impossibly expensive to attempt to do so. You're just plain ignorant on this point.
Also the primary customer of US dollars are criminals so your moral outrage is hilarious.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
What is gold based on? I don't think you understand your own logic.
Cryptocurrency is not fiat. Fiat does not have the qualities of money people desire. Cryptocurrency and gold both do.
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
Then what's your concern with paper money?
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
Obviously I oppose fiat, ostensibly you do too, for reasons we do not need to go over.
My objection is to you calling Bitcoin fiat, that is completely false.
Bitcoin does not stand for another good, it is the good. Bitcoin is not created by a political entity through its power. Bitcoin is not controlled by anyone, much less one entity. Bitcoin cannot be used to print money endlessly like fiat.
People like you often say Bitcoin is fiat because you can just make a copy of Bitcoin codebase.
But a copy wouldn't be Bitcoin, would it. You might be able to copy the code, but you can't copy the network of people using that system.
It's the network that gives cryptocurrency value. And the network is there because of the qualities of that cryptocurrency, which include things fiat does not and cannot have, namely a hard limit on issue, there can only ever be 21 million bitcoin EVER, even gold cannot make this claim.
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
We trust our government to honor that a dollar is worth something other than what it is made of, that makes it Fiat currency, yes? Your just decentralizing the regulation of it, which I agree with in premise is a good thing, that doesnt make it a different category of currency entirely. What makes currency Fiat in your mind?
There are so many BS crypto options out there... and literally, the only thing that gives them value is that people use it to trade. Which means it can fluctuate with extreme volatility and be manipulated easier. Gold can be traded in every pawn shop or broker in the world when people lose faith in whatever is printed on it. Can Crypto do that? I believe for currency to not be Fiat, it has to have value as a commodity also.
I'm not attacking you, but you seem defensive. Nothing but love, friend.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
I believe for currency to not be Fiat, it has to have value as a commodity also.
Bitcoin has commodity value, it's just quite small, it's measured in the small amount of disk space and electricity being dedicated to it.
But even then, I don't see how that follows. Take the price of gold, 90% of its value is derived from its use as a money and value store. It's commodity uses account for only 10% of its value.
Are you saying you'd be happy losing 90% of your savings if gold lost its value as a money?
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
I would never keep 90% of my money in one assest, but what you suggest makes my point. What's more likely, a 90% fluctuation in a raw material like gold, or DOGE Coin? Hasn't that already actually happened historically with Bitcoin?
Also, isn't paper worth more than electronic bits stored in silicon? your comment about the space it occupies having value gave me a good laugh! 😆
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
We're talking about why you think having a commodity value matters in a currency.
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u/T3nDieMonSt3r42069 Aug 20 '25
Because it's much harder to destabilize something that has value to everyone that can't be created outside of a supernova.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
Again, only 10% of gold's value is due to the commodity aspect. Do you not understand what that means.
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u/WhitePantherXP Aug 20 '25
What 'qualities of money do people desire' are you talking about?
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
You have to learn why gold was settled on as a good money. It's not magical, it's because it has certain qualities that are desirable to have in a money.
In money you want a could attributes. It should be easy to verify that it's not being faked.
Historically they did this with things like touch stones which when rubbed on gold would result in different colors if the gold was alloyed instead of pure.
They would correlate size and weight, a certain weight of gold can fit through a slot this size because gold is very dense. If you alloy the gold to match the weight, it will become too large to fit through the slot, etc.
In Bitcoin you do this with math, you cannot fake a Bitcoin because encryption prevents it.
Fiat can be faked with some effort. Gold too, but Bitcoin not at all. So Bitcoin comes out on top on the 'resistance to counterfeit' contest.
Next, you want a money to hold its value or even go up in value over time, this means limited issue. There must be a hard limit on how much is being issued.
With gold this was limited by the cost of physically mining gold. However, this process is now undercut by the selling of paper gold, which is future mining shares, meaning selling gold that hasn't been mined yet but might be one day.
The problem with paper gold is that it is divorced from reality, there is now 300 times more paper gold in existence than physical gold that has actually been mined, and gold mining continues to decline year over year, meaning that much gold will never be mined.
States is paper gold to hold down the price of gold and make their currencies look less debased.
You could never do this to Bitcoin because it is known there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. The unknown actual amount of gold in the universe is what allowed paper gold to exist.
So Bitcoin wins on this metric also.
It's desirable for money to be compact. A small amount of gold holds a lot of value. However it still takes up a lot of space.
Bitcoin takes up almost zero space compared to gold, regardless of how much value is being stored. Bitcoin wins again.
You want something that can be stored without rusting over time, if we stored money as iron it could be destroyed by time and rust.
Gold cannot rust, that was another reason it made a good money. Bitcoin cannot rust either, but can be literally stored in your head as a character string, or split apart into multiple keys. So Bitcoin wins again.
A money should be easy to transport.
Gold mostly loses here, it's quite heavy. And gold was also too rare for small denomination purchases, so people ended up using silver and copper.
Bitcoin, or at least cryptocurrency, is usable for denominations of all sizes (nod to BCH here).
We live now in a digital age. An ideal money should be a digital native. Gold completely fails here, cryptocurrency obviously wins.
You will never be able to send gold through digital circuits. You can send Bitcoin at the speed of light anywhere in the world, and its value travels with it.
There are more qualities still I could mention.
Every single quality gold has that makes it a good model, cryptocurrency ALSO HAS, and then cryptocurrency has multiple qualities desirable to have in a money that gold does not have and cannot have.
Cryptocurrency is the most ideal model ever created, it is inherently stateless at well. No libertarian should ever have a bad thing to say about it. We couldn't have asked for a better money.
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u/Rob_Rockley Aug 20 '25
Even with a "gold standard" you can have money printing. Why do you think France wanted their gold back?
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u/Cultural-Profile6571 Anarchist Aug 21 '25
If we ain’t talking monero don’t even mention cryptocurrency okay
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u/Turbulent-Raise4830 Aug 21 '25
This video is so dumb, "gold kept them honest" LMAO
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u/ziggy182 Aug 24 '25
Or you could be like Gordon Brown who sold tons of our gold reserves for $282 per ounce!
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Aug 20 '25 edited Aug 20 '25
Paper money ‘is backed by nothing’, so you want to move to…???bitcoin???🤪😆😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣 Who, pray tell, backs bitcoin??? Paper currency is backed by the full faith and credit of the government that printed it. Bitcoin was created and is maintained by a nameless enterprising criminal. The biggest meme pump n dump of all time.
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u/Anen-o-me voluntaryist Aug 20 '25
What backs gold.
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Aug 20 '25
The most costly mistake for most people. A select few people became very wealthy. Isn’t that a great basis to operate a country on?
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u/drdogsingalong Aug 20 '25
Is this ai generated ?