We often hear bitcoin is a waste, but rarely will someone present a full accounting of all the costs and the benefits associated with bitcoin. In this seminar, based on a chapter from upcoming The Fiat Standard, Saifedean attempts a full accounting of the costs that go into making bitcoin work, from electricity to infrastructure, and compares them to the benefits bitcoin provides: appreciating savings, money transfer, and most importantly, obsoleting fiat money, with its massive costs. We estimate fiat inflation costs the world around 2.5% of global wealth per year, and has incalculable costs with rising time preference, economic distortion, activist government, and conflict. We also discuss how to best think about bitcoin's efficiency, and why it can be approximated by the stock-to-flow ratio!
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