The Bitcoin Standard Podcast

Dr. Saifedean Ammous on his Upcoming Economics Textbook - Human Action Podcast Sep 30, 2020

Show notes

Professor Saifedean Ammous, author of The Bitcoin Standard, is in the midst of writing a new textbook titled Principle of Economics. But he's writing it in open-source form: drafting, revising, and sharing the manuscript with his online students as the book is created. And unlike most lousy college economics textbooks, his offering is rooted in Austrian theory and contains numerous references to Menger, Böhm-Bawerk, Mises, Rothbard, and Hoppe. Academia is changing, and the way we learn is ripe for disruption. Dr. Ammous is at the fore of these changes, and you don't want to miss this show.

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5. Michael Saylor & Microstrategy adopt The Bitcoin Standard Sep 26, 2020

Show notes

In this seminar we host Michael Saylor, CEO of Microstrategy, the publicly traded company that announced it was making bitcoin its primary treasure reserve asset, and purchasing 38,250 BTC (~$425m). Saylor explains how this was a deliberate decision to put the company on a Bitcoin Standard.

Enjoyed this episode? You can take part in podcast seminars, access Saifedean’s courses and read chapters of his forthcoming books by becoming a Saifedean.com member. Find out more here.

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Bitcoin Fixes This #5 - Saifedean Ammous on Off Chain with Jimmy Song Sep 22, 2020

Show notes

Saifedean Ammous is the author of The Bitcoin Standard. We talk about the university system, how money has made it highly inefficient and how the internet is routing around it. Saifedean also tells us about how government money has made colleges into ineffective research institutions, how PhD students are abused as cheap labor and how competition will ultimately help everyone.

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4. Microstrategy announcement of allocating $425M into Bitcoin Sep 18, 2020

Show notes

Seminar 4 with Dr. Ammous for September 17, 2020
Enjoyed this episode? You can take part in podcast seminars, access Saifedean’s courses and read chapters of his forthcoming books by becoming a Saifedean.com member. Find out more here.

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Economics, Energy, and Bitcoin w/ Alex Epstein & Saifedean Ammous Sep 15, 2020

Show notes

In this episode of Power Hour by Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, interviews Dr. Saifedean Ammous, economist and author of "The Bitcoin Standard."

Alex and Dr. Ammous discuss a wide range of topics, including:
How Ammous got interested in energy economics.
What Ammous learned studying the economics of biofuels.
Why it’s crucial to think of time as the most important resource.
How energy relates to time.
How economists tend to undervalue energy - and what Ammous is doing to address this.
Additionally, they discuss several foundational issues in economics, such as the nature of money, economic calculation, the nature of value, and opportunity cost.

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3. Bitcoin Difficulty Adjustment Sep 11, 2020

Show notes

The Bitcoin Standard Podcast Seminar 3, September 10, 2020
In this seminar we discuss bitcoin's difficulty adjustment, what I view as the secret sauce that makes bitcoin work!

Enjoyed this episode? You can take part in podcast seminars, access Saifedean’s courses and read chapters of his forthcoming books by becoming a Saifedean.com member. Find out more here.

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2. Economics of Energy Sep 04, 2020

Show notes

This seminar focuses on the economics of energy. How does the economic way of thinking help us understand the energy market, and recent events like the California blackouts. I discuss the content of the economics of energy chapter in my forthcoming textbook, Principles of Economics, and how marginal analysis can help us understand the limitations of unreliable energy sources, as well as the world's continued reliance on hydrocarbons for energy.

Enjoyed this episode? You can take part in podcast seminars, access Saifedean’s courses and read chapters of his forthcoming books by becoming a Saifedean.com member. Find out more here.

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Saifedean Ammous on Why Bitcoin is the Most Advanced Form of Money Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

Saifedean Ammous is an economist and the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, which has been translated into 20 languages. In this episode, he discusses:

the basic tenets of Austrian economics and why it is the only school where Bitcoin is possible
historical examples of currencies and how they lost their monetary value
the stock-to-flow model and how Bitcoin fits into that model
the three functions, or descriptive properties, of money and why Bitcoin fulfills these functions
the concept of sound money
the idea of time preference in economics and why he believes it is so important
the distinction between debt and money, and why they are not the same
the significance of difficulty adjustment and why he believes it is the crowning achievement of Bitcoin
why he views Bitcoin as the best store of value humanity has ever invented
the metrics he watches when assessing Bitcoin
what he thinks is in store for Bitcoin in the future, and whether he still thinks central banks will buy Bitcoin as a reserve currency
his thoughts on Ethereum and other digital currencies
and his predictions for Bitcoin in the next year

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1. Monarchy and Democracy Aug 22, 2020

Show notes

Main points on Monarchy vs Democracy:
1. Time preference
2. Security of property
3. War
4. Democracy has perverse selection
5. Democracy legitimates government
6. Kings don't owe anybody anything
7. Rise of civilizations under monarchy
Relevant quote from Hoppe: "Traditional monarchies only resemble dictatorships superficially. Instead, dictatorships are a regular outgrowth of mass democracy. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao were distinctly democratic rulers as compared to the former Emperors of Russia, Germany, Austria, and China. Indeed, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao (and almost all of their smaller and lesser known successors) were outspoken in their hatred of everything monarchic and aristocratic. They knew that they owed their rise to democratic mass politics, and they employed democratic politics (elections, referenda, mass rallies, mass media propaganda, etc.) throughout their reign."
Further Readings:

Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed

Hoppe, Political Economy of Monarchy and Democracy

Hoppe, The Myth of National Defense

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Monarchy and War

Leland Yeager, A Libertarian Case for Monarchy

Enjoyed this episode? You can take part in podcast seminars, access Saifedean’s courses and read chapters of his forthcoming books by becoming a Saifedean.com member. Find out more here.

THE BITCOIN STANDARD TOOLKIT/SPONSORS