5 ideas
Ammous defines a money's 'hardness' as the ratio of its existing stockpile to its new annual production. A high ratio means new supply cannot meaningfully dilute holders even when demand rises, and he argues this is why gold outlasted other commodity monies.
West Africans used glass aggry beads as money because the beads were costly to make locally. European traders could mass-produce them cheaply, flooded the region with them, and so drained real goods and labor, including slaves, out of the bead-holding societies. Ammous uses the episode to argue that whoever can produce a money more cheaply than its holders can expropriate them.
Ammous argues that when money holds or gains value, people discount the future less. They save more, invest in long-term capital, and produce durable art and institutions. Inflationary fiat money does the reverse by punishing saving, which he blames for consumerism, debt, and cultural short-termism.
In this reading, fiat money lets governments fund wars and expand spending through inflation, a hidden tax, instead of through explicit taxes that voters would resist. Ammous attributes the scale of the World Wars to the suspension of gold convertibility.
Ammous argues that Bitcoin's supply cap of 21 million, enforced by its protocol, and its difficulty adjustment make it the hardest money ever created. No increase in demand or mining effort can raise its supply schedule. On this view it improves on gold, being cheaper to transport and verify and resistant to confiscation, and it makes it possible to return to a sound-money standard without central banks.