The conflation of money and currency is not just an innocent misunderstanding—it’s the kind of conceptual sleight-of-hand that keeps fiat apologists gainfully employed and the average person blissfully ignorant of their gradual financial expropriation. For decades, this confusion has allowed governments to sell us paper money as if it were actual wealth while quietly siphoning off our purchasing power through inflation. Bitcoin, the hardest money ever conceived, is here to expose the scam. Its emergence not only highlights the fundamental flaws of fiat currency but serves as a blueprint for restoring economic sanity.

What Is Money? What Is Currency?

As Carl Menger, the intellectual patriarch of Austrian economics, explained, money is an organic market phenomenon. It arises naturally as the most saleable good—something durable, divisible, portable, and scarce enough to store value across time. For millennia, gold held the title of supreme money because it ticked all these boxes. It didn’t need a central bank, a law, or a bureaucrat to anoint it. It was chosen freely by the market.

Currency, however, is a pale imitation of money, like a bad cover band playing your favorite song off-key. As Ludwig von Mises explained in The Theory of Money and Credit, fiat currency exists by government decree, not because it’s good, but because it’s forced upon you under threat of imprisonment or worse. Its value is propped up by coercion—legal tender laws, taxes, and the monopoly of central banks.

Mises summarized the problem best: “A government is the only institution that can take perfectly good paper, cover it with perfectly good ink, and make it absolutely worthless.” And it’s not just worthless paper—it’s a tool for robbing you blind through inflation. Bitcoin exists to fix this farce.

Bitcoin: The Hardest Money Ever Conceived

Gold may have been the hardest money for millennia, but Bitcoin is harder. Unlike gold, which grows supply every time a miner finds a new vein, Bitcoin’s supply is immutable: 21 million, not a single satoshi more. Even if every central banker, bureaucrat, and NGO on the planet wants to print more Bitcoin, they can’t. Bitcoin has institutionalized scarcity in code.

This makes Bitcoin the scarcest resource humanity has ever known, as Michael Saylor aptly put it: “Gold was the best money in the analog age. Bitcoin is the best money in the digital age.” Gold is heavy, slow, and dependent on centralized vaults, banks, and security firms to function in the modern economy. Bitcoin eliminates all of this. It’s infinitely portable, weightless, and can be sent across the world at the speed of light, with zero reliance on intermediaries.

And for those who think Bitcoin is “too digital” or “too new,” let me remind you that no one lobbied to uninvent email because they were too attached to snail mail.

Conflating Money and Currency: The Keynesian Magic Trick

Critics of Bitcoin often pull off a rhetorical sleight of hand worthy of Houdini: conflating money and currency. They’ll say Bitcoin is “too volatile,” lacks “intrinsic value,” or isn’t “efficient for payments,” hoping you’ll be too distracted to ask, “Wait, hasn’t the U.S. dollar lost 98% of its purchasing power since 1913?”

As Dr. Saifedean Ammous explains in The Bitcoin Standard, money emerges naturally from the market as the best tool for storing value and facilitating trade. Currency, on the other hand, is the state’s clumsy counterfeit—a tool for funding deficits and diluting savings through inflation. By conflating the two, critics argue Bitcoin’s inability to mimic fiat currency disqualifies it as money. That’s like dismissing the Wright brothers because their plane couldn’t do donuts in a parking lot.

Bitcoin vs. Fiat: Not a Contest

Bitcoin doesn’t aim to replace fiat currency on fiat’s bloated, broken terms. It’s here to restore money to what it was always meant to be: a reliable store of value beyond the reach of bureaucrats and their money printers. Critics harp on Bitcoin’s “volatility,” conveniently ignoring the financial fireworks of fiat currencies like the Argentine peso or Turkish lira. Bitcoin’s ups and downs reflect a free market; fiat’s “stability” is nothing but central bank manipulation.

Payment “Efficiency” and Other Myths

The “inefficient for payments” trope is another Keynesian favorite. They’ll compare Bitcoin to Visa, ignoring that Visa rides on the back of government-backed fiat. Calling Bitcoin inefficient because it bypasses banks and middlemen is like calling the internet inefficient in 1995 for not loading pictures of cats fast enough. Bitcoin wasn’t designed to mimic Visa; it’s here to make Visa—and its centralized masters—obsolete.

The Real Keynesian Magic Trick

The true trick is convincing you fiat currency is money. Fiat’s “stability” is a lie: it’s a sugar rush for governments that leaves savers footing the bill through inflation. As Ammous puts it, Bitcoin offers a monetary system “divorced from the politics of the nation-state.” It’s not a cog in the Keynesian machine—it’s the sledgehammer breaking it.

So when critics cry that Bitcoin isn’t good at being fiat, they miss the point entirely. Bitcoin wasn’t built to be another Chuck E. Cheese token in the carnival of central banking. It’s here to replace the rigged game with scarcity, sovereignty, and incorruptibility. And that’s a trick the Keynesians can’t pull off—no matter how much money they print.

Gunpowder and Bitcoin: Technology That Levels the Playing Field

Saifedean frequently compares Bitcoin to gunpowder, and the analogy is perfect: “Gunpowder empowers the people who hold it far more than those who don’t.” Gunpowder changed the balance of power in warfare, putting unprecedented force in the hands of ordinary people. Similarly, Bitcoin puts economic power back where it belongs: in the hands of individuals.

This is why financial institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Wall Street, which once dismissed Bitcoin, are now clamoring to get their hands on it. They’ve realized they can’t ban or uninvent Bitcoin, so they’ve chosen to profit from it instead. The same institutions that profited from fiat debasement are now rushing to ride the Bitcoin wave because they see the writing on the wall. As Larry Fink of BlackRock recently admitted: “Bitcoin is an international asset… It can revolutionize finance.”

Governments and banks tried ignoring Bitcoin, then ridiculing it, and finally threatening it. Now, they’re adopting it, because Bitcoin is not just another technology—it’s a better form of money. And like gunpowder, it’s unstoppable.

Subjective Value and the Case for Bitcoin

Critics love to trot out the tired line that Bitcoin has no “intrinsic value.” This argument isn’t just wrong—it’s hilariously Keynesian, betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. As Austrian economics teaches us, value is always subjective. As Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard emphasized, value exists in the minds of individuals, not in objects themselves. Gold’s historical role as money wasn’t due to its industrial uses—it came from its scarcity, durability, and universal acceptance as a store of value. Similarly, Bitcoin’s value isn’t about what it can do for payments or some mythical “intrinsic” property; it’s about what it offers in a world riddled with inflation and monetary manipulation: a secure, immutable, unconfiscatable store of wealth.

Fiat currencies, ironically defended by these same critics, are the poster child for lacking intrinsic value—backed by nothing but government promises and central bank whimsy. Bitcoin, by contrast, is the hardest money ever conceived, combining gold’s scarcity with 21st-century portability and resilience. As Rothbard pointed out in What Has Government Done to Our Money?, the value of money lies in its utility as a medium of exchange, not its industrial uses. Bitcoin takes this principle to its ultimate conclusion, providing a digital, incorruptible store of value that thrives where fiat currencies fail—whether in hyperinflationary crises or under authoritarian regimes. Simply put, Bitcoin isn’t just hard money—it’s a lifeboat for a sinking financial system.

The Path to a Bitcoin Standard

A Reluctant Adoption

The road to a Bitcoin standard is disruptive but inevitable. Governments and banks that once dismissed Bitcoin as a speculative fad or criminal tool are now being forced to integrate it—not out of preference, but necessity. El Salvador’s embrace of Bitcoin as legal tender, initially ridiculed, has sparked interest from other nations facing monetary instability, while financial giants like BlackRock and Fidelity scramble to capitalize on growing demand. Even efforts to suppress Bitcoin, such as China’s mining bans or Turkey’s regulatory crackdowns, have only hardened its resilience, pushing adoption and activity into new territories. As Buckminster Fuller observed, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Bitcoin is that model—a decentralized monetary system so robust that even its detractors are being forced to engage with it.

Volatility Is a Feature, Not a Bug

Critics love to wave Bitcoin’s price volatility as a red flag, ignoring the fact that all forms of money—gold included—experienced turbulence during their monetization phases. Gold saw wild price swings before solidifying its role as the foundation of global finance. Bitcoin is undergoing the same process, but at a lightning pace, accelerated by the internet and global interconnectedness. Meanwhile, fiat currencies, the supposed paragons of stability, quietly bleed purchasing power year after year. From Argentina’s peso to the U.S. dollar, inflation erodes savings while enriching governments and debtors. Bitcoin, with its fixed supply of 21 million, flips this dynamic. Its design ensures scarcity and value preservation, creating a money that incentivizes saving over spending—a stark contrast to fiat’s “spend now before it loses value” mindset.

A New Monetary Order

Bitcoin’s deflationary nature will have profound effects on consumer and producer behavior in a world where money increases in value over time. In contrast to fiat systems that compel spending and risk-taking through inflation, a Bitcoin-based economy encourages long-term thinking, careful investment, and sustainable growth. As individuals and businesses hold a money that appreciates rather than depreciates, consumer prices will naturally decline over time, as innovation and efficiency reduce costs in a world not distorted by inflation. Producers, no longer forced into speculative investments to outpace currency debasement, can focus on creating real value rather than navigating monetary manipulation.

The shift to a deflationary standard would be nothing short of revolutionary, dismantling the boom-bust cycles fueled by fiat-driven credit expansion. Instead of punishing savers and rewarding debtors, Bitcoin restores balance to the economic equation, rewarding prudence and value creation. This is the heart of Bitcoin’s promise—not just freedom and sovereignty, but an economic system where wealth grows through innovation and efficiency, not inflationary trickery. Bitcoin is not just an alternative to fiat; it is the foundation of a monetary order built on hard, sound principles—one that benefits individuals, businesses, and societies alike.

Conclusion: Bitcoin—The Hardest Money for a New Age

Critics who fail to distinguish between money and currency inevitably miss Bitcoin’s revolutionary potential. They cling to the idea that fiat currency, despite its flaws, is the pinnacle of monetary evolution, ignoring the reality that fiat is not money—it’s a tool of control. As Saifedean Ammous reminds us, “Money emerges as the most marketable good for storing value and facilitating trade.” Currency, by contrast, is a state-imposed impostor, wielded to inflate deficits, debase savings, and manipulate economies. Bitcoin doesn’t just compete with fiat currency—it renders it obsolete.

Bitcoin is the first truly hard money of the digital age, combining the scarcity of gold with the efficiency and reach of global digital networks. With its fixed supply and incorruptible ledger, Bitcoin is antifragile—growing stronger in response to attacks and crises. Like the printing press or gunpowder, it represents a fundamental shift in the balance of power, taking control away from centralized authorities and putting it into the hands of individuals. Just as these technologies broke monopolies on knowledge and force, Bitcoin breaks the monopoly on money. Its decentralized design makes it unstoppable, its deflationary nature makes it invaluable, and its open network ensures it belongs to everyone, not just the elite.

The critics’ rhetoric is becoming increasingly hollow. They call Bitcoin a bubble, yet ignore the endless “bubble-blowing” of fiat-backed markets. They call it speculative, yet fail to explain why so many are using it as a lifeline in collapsing economies. Bitcoin’s adoption is not hypothetical—it’s happening in real-time, one wallet download at a time. As Ammous succinctly puts it: “Bitcoin is not here to fix the government’s money. It’s here to replace it.”

This is not just an alternative financial system—it’s a revolution in the truest sense. Bitcoin introduces sound money principles to an era plagued by reckless monetary policies and systemic corruption. It doesn’t rely on coercion to succeed; it thrives on voluntary adoption, trustless security, and the simple but profound idea that money should belong to those who earn it.

The path to a Bitcoin standard is not without challenges, but its trajectory is clear. Bitcoin is here. It’s winning. And it’s reshaping the world’s understanding of money—not as a tool of state power, but as a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a vehicle for human sovereignty. The future of money is not printed—it’s mined. The future of money is Bitcoin.

Money vs Currency & Bitcoin