Programmabletx on Nostr: I've spent the last two years contemplating the classical gold standard, looking for ...

I've spent the last two years contemplating the classical gold standard, looking for glimpses of how a Bitcoin standard could work.

Somehow I missed a fantastic paper on the subject.

It's called The Bitcoin Standard: Lessons From The Gold Standard. It was written by Warren E. Weber, who was then a visiting scholar at the Bank Of Canada.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/bitcoin-standard-lessons.pdf

Bitcoin Magazine wrote about this paper in 2017: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bank-canada-report-imagining-bitcoin-standard-financial-system

The Bitcoin Magazine article summarizes the paper as being negative on the idea of a Bitcoin Standard. Upon reading the actual paper for myself, however, I don't think the conclusion is negative at all. At least not the ORIGINAL version....

See, there are two versions of this paper on the internet. The first was written in 2015. The paper was then revised in 2016. And the conclusions of both of these drafts are different in FASCINATING ways. The 2015 version, as a complete work, is amazing, and in my opinion the better paper. The conclusion is nuanced, though somewhat incomplete IMO for several reasons. But overall the 2015 paper posits a bold and sound thesis: that a Bitcoin standard WOULD ACTUALLY WORK in practice.

Weber's paper is remarkably ahead of his time. I mean, Saifedean's Book, "The Bitcoin Standard" seemed radical when it was published a full 3 years after Weber.

My guess is that Weber's ideas must have surprised a few people in the banking establishment. I further surmise that he got some feedback which caused him to throw in a more downbeat ending to the 2016 version.

I'll summarize both versions over the next couple weeks in a thread here.

In short, I am even more convinced now that a global Bitcoin standard would work. I think the author would agree.

Thanks for your great work Warren Weber.