BTC vs. BTC—What Saifedean Ammous' Upcoming Book Gets Right (And Wrong!)

Dr. Saifedean Ammous has authored one of the most-read books about Bitcoin in the world - The Bitcoin Standard.

Now, he is preparing to unleash his dragons onto the fictional scene with The Gold Standard. For more information about this next book, check out his tweet. He provides the first 4 chapters free at his website and the book is available for pre-order, to be availed in March 2025.

For some context, here is what the book’s description says on Ammous’ website:

What would the world look like if we had a gold standard in the twentieth century? What would life be like with constantly appreciating money and declining prices?

What would have happened if governments could not have financed themselves with inflation in the last century without accountability? How would living standards and wages have changed? How would the state have evolved? What would have happened to education, technology, politics, and our production of energy?

The Gold Standard attempts to answer these questions with a fictional economic history of an alternative twentieth century in which the fiat money experiment fails in 1915. French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot partners with the Wright brothers in 1911 to build an airplane-based decentralized peer-to-peer gold clearance service, the Bleriot Transport Corporation (BTC).

Contrary to expectations, BTC is a success and demand for its services is robust, and when the Great War begins in the summer of 1914, BTC offers citizens everywhere the chance to escape central bank inflation by exporting their wealth to neutral countries. The result is a global financial panic in September 1915 that bankrupts all the world’s major central banks and destroys their currencies. A new decentralized modern gold standard is built around peer-to-peer airplane gold clearance, and an entirely different twentieth century unfolds.

But March 2025 is too far away for me 😁.

So here I go, pitting BTC against BTC.

1. The Pollution Problem

I’ll start right off the bat by stating the obvious.

The Blériot Transportation Company (BTC) and its Aeroplane Revolution, will quickly pollute the world at levels that would dwarf the factory pollution of Britain in its 19th century Industrial Revolution.

At peak Aeroplane Revolution, I cannot fathom the noise, especially in very busy capital-clearing areas.

Today, more than 100,000 flights are taken every day. Considering an average of 100 passengers per flight, more than 10 million people are flying every day.

But that is all in our imperfect fiat world.

How about if we also had gold clearance services by a 100-year-old BTC system, running concurrently?

Well, people perform payments more frequently than they do flights, so there would be more than 100,000 golden flights happening daily as well.

Granted. I would be happier and wealthier.

But would those planes be so good for our climate problems and respiratory health?

I don’t think so.

And in the unlikely event of a golden plane crash, gold bars falling from the sky add complications to the entire debacle.

Also, some crazy person would be motivated to shoot one of these golden birds down.

If Satoshi ever surfaced to challenge that BTC system, inviting it to upgrade to Bitcoin, I believe he would be welcomed with open arms.

Bitcoin is highly energy efficient compared to the Blériot Transportation Company. With next to no pollution. Nor sleep lost over whether any pirate will shoot the plane down.

For Bitcoin keys, which is all you need, are always safe on a piece of paper in the drawer.

2. Next to no Scammers

I’ll give this to the world of the Blériot Transportation Company. I really do not see how scammers, with keyboard-warrior fingers and only underwear, would rob any self-dignified man or woman of their BTC gold.

That world would have more tough hombres. Men and Women alike.

Here’s the thing about gold: it inspires confidence in a way that comparative digital wealth does not.

At least, that’s what all the pirate stories I have read tell me.

Even the term ‘Spanish Conquistador’ has a fierceness that ‘Bitcoin Maximalist’ just doesn’t match.

To seal this deal, look at all these rad movie titles on gold:

All created in a world without the Blériot Transportation Company.

Now look at movies about bitcoin, crypto and digital money.

3 search terms, but still, not much could be found.

I guess that settles it.

You also won’t get the below muscle mass if all your wealth can easily be carried around on a flash drive.

On a BTC gold standard, we would definitely be back on the moon by now.

With some gold bars in tow.