I first discovered Bitcoin in 2015 as an undergrad and wrote a short essay concluding it was a speculative asset with no fundamental value. Though I wish that were not my initial opinion, when applying the economic theory I had learned in school it was the only logical conclusion I could come to. Over the years, reading about Bitcoin started to consume my spare time. By 2018 I came to the realization that Bitcoin was the next step in the world’s monetary evolution. By 2019 I quit my job in private equity and moved into my mom’s basement to begin working on this writing.
This 4-year process could have been shorter. It was long because I had to relearn a lot of what I had been taught at university. I started to revisit concepts that I had once questioned.
I remember the first time I was taught that interest on US government debt was the “risk-free interest rate” because the government can always print more money and can never default.
I thought, “there is no such thing as risk-free but what is the risk of printing money?”
Within the same year, I was taught that inflation is necessary, and that the central bank targets a rate of 2% in our economy. Nobody provided me with a developed reason as to why inflation was necessary, it was largely expected to be taken at face value. The best explanation I received is that it encourages spending and investment which makes our economy grow.
But production of goods and services is what makes an economy grow right? Isn’t there some sort of cost to creating inflation? At the time, I did not know enough to conclude otherwise.
In 2016, a close friend of mine, Avinash Patel, brought Bitcoin back to my attention. I first invested once I realized it did not need to produce cash flows to have value, but still saw it as a speculative investment. Now, I view Bitcoin as the base layer monetary asset for a new global decentralized financial system.
My book is the book I wish someone had given me back in 2015.
I spent thousands of hours researching areas of monetary economics, central banking, cryptography, and computer science to synthesize this information. By the end of the book, you will at a minimum consider the possibility that Bitcoin is the new monetary base layer of a new financial system which has not occurred in millennia.
My book is intended for those with a background in finance/economics but if you have a more general understanding of business you can get through it with the occasional google search. Don’t be intimidated by the content – if you don’t understand something try to look it up and just keep reading. The first half can be challenging but provides the necessary background to understand money and banking – a prerequisite to understanding Bitcoin. If you read this, you will understand Bitcoin well enough to decide it’s validity for yourself.
If you don’t want to buy my book I have included a series for free that I wrote for Bitcoin Magazine starting at the green button below. This is based on the research for my book that everyone interested in Bitcoin needs to understand, at a minimum.
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