Review by Olivia Broadway, Queen City Freedom Fellowship

Many consider The Bitcoin Standard to be the "Bible" for Bitcoin, and I can see why. The majority of the book is actually focused on the history of money and what makes money valuable, which is really important to understand if you are going to understand the case for Bitcoin. Ammous' writing style is engaging, and his love of Austrian Economics comes through loud and clear, which I appreciated. He takes aim at both Keynesians and Monetarists, since both see a role for the State in regulating the money supply, albeit to different degrees. As I read, I realized how little I actually knew about the history of money; such things as sea shells, glass beads, and heavy stones had been used in various civilizations, which had subsequently suffered economic catastrophes with the inflation of their money supplies when someone figured out how to easily make/find more of the "money."

The book doesn't get into the tactics of how to actually buy and store Bitcoin, but it does present a compelling case for Bitcoin as the best money we have, particularly from the "store of value" perspective. A money's "store of value" is largely based on its stock to flow ratio (stock = existing supply; flow = new amount created). The harder it is to create new amounts of the money, the higher the stock to flow ratio, and the more likely the money will be a good store of value. This is how gold became the standard across the globe for millennia. And this is why Ammous argues that Bitcoin could be "the best store of value humanity has ever invented."

This was a fantastic book that I found to be an easy read, explaining concepts in layman’s terms, while not losing the substance of the argument. I highly recommend this book for both the interesting history as well as the introduction to the case for Bitcoin.