I just published, The Bitcoin Primer, A First Principles Guide to Money, Technology and the Case for Bitcoin. I’ve had some success helping friends and family understand Bitcoin, so I wrote a simple primer for people starting from scratch. It covers what money is, how our system works today, technology and deflation, and finally Bitcoin. If it helps, share it with someone you care about. medium.com/p/the-bitcoin-pri…

Which way, Western man? When your stock market, GDP and tax receipts depend on fewer and fewer companies, those companies eventually have to merge with government to maintain valuations, creating fragility, centralizing control and stifling the benefits of free markets and efficient capital allocation. By contrast, free markets and competition are deflationary. AI and open-source models are deflationary. This path is fundamentally incongruent with a debt-based monetary system. An even more momentous shift toward open source would be an admission of this reality and would ultimately force the reserve currency and reserve asset to pivot toward sound money. You can’t have both. You can maintain the illusion of stability for only so long, and only at the expense of growing fragility beneath the surface.

I recently listened to the @brandon_gentile podcast with Michael Green (@profplum99) and wanted to share a few thoughts. Michael’s core argument around the 43 minute mark is that we need to expand the money supply through credit creation so future generations can “buy into” the system. My interpretation of his view is, if we were on a Bitcoin standard, new participants would start with little or no Bitcoin and would be at a significant disadvantage compared to early adopters. It’s a fair concern on the surface, and it intuitively feels like credit helps pull opportunity forward. But this ties directly into what Jeff Booth has been saying for years. The natural state of a free market is deflation. As entrepreneurs compete and technology improves, the cost to produce goods and services should fall. If productivity is improving at, say, 5 percent per year, then everyone should effectively be getting 5 percent wealthier each year through falling prices. And this compounds every year. Instead, in a credit based system, we expand the money supply to offset that deflation. Prices don’t fall, they rise. So you’re not only losing that productivity gain, you’re also dealing with inflation on top of it. The system quietly absorbs the benefits of innovation rather than passing them through to everyone. I do agree with one part of Michael’s point. Early adopters of Bitcoin will benefit as it gains broader consensus. But the advantage they hold is purchasing power, not some permanent lock on opportunity. The only way to realize that purchasing power is to spend it, and when they do, that value flows to others who are providing goods and services. Bitcoin doesn’t trap value, it circulates it through exchange. This is where the Cantillon effect becomes important. In a credit based system, those closest to new money creation benefit first. Asset prices inflate, and those further away fall behind. So when we talk about future generations being disadvantaged, it’s worth asking which system actually makes it harder to get started. Today, the cost of housing, assets, and ownership keeps getting pulled further out of reach precisely because of this dynamic. In a Bitcoin or hard money framework, the hurdle rate for investment does rise. You only deploy capital if the return exceeds what your money would naturally gain through falling prices plus execution risk. But that is not a flaw, it is disciplined capital allocation reacting to free market incentives. It means capital flows to things that genuinely create value, not just things that can only survive in an environment of cheap money or money that can't be held in it's currency. The idea that people would stop spending because money is appreciating also doesn’t really hold up in my opinion. We still need to live. We still need food, shelter, energy, and experiences. The price of nearly everything has fallen in Bitcoin terms since Bitcoin had a market value and yet Bitcoiner's still trade their money for consumption. What changes is not whether we spend, but how carefully we allocate capital. Entrepreneurs have to compete harder to earn it, and as they do, prices fall, quality improves, and abundance increases. It starts with our basic needs and expands outwards to our wants based on our individual hierarchy of needs. Michael also touched on community, the idea of helping your neighbor build a barn, participating locally, and grounding economic activity in real relationships. I agree with that instinct. But hard money doesn’t remove that, it extends it. Your community becomes anyone operating on the same standard of value. In a Bitcoin world, that coordination scales globally as everyone competing to provide value enriches their neighbour and is reflected in falling prices. So the question becomes pretty simple. Which system would you rather be born into 30 years from now? One where money must continually lose value, where asset inflation widens the gap between those who own and those who don’t, and where getting started becomes increasingly difficult over time. Or one where you gain purchasing power by creating value, where prices fall as innovation compounds, and where everyone benefits from lower costs. Hard money doesn’t lock people out. It removes the hidden advantages and forces the system to reward real value creation benefitting everyone. youtu.be/MjmkBo9nlFA?si=VwZF…

This article builds on ideas from people like @JeffBooth, @LynAldenContact, @RayDalio, @saifedean, @satmojoe & @sebbunney and many others who have shaped how I think about money and Bitcoin. Worth following if you’re going deeper. Feedback is welcome.