On January 1, 2000, the world was supposed to end. As the date changed and the next millennium rolled in, computer systems programmed in the 1960s and 1970s were expected to crash. Storage space was very expensive back then. As a result, programmers often saved space by recording years with only two digits instead of four, omitting the century. Once the century changed, the logic would be lost, and systems would malfunction.

Massive IT projects were launched to fix the problem and prevent looming disasters, like nuclear power plants exploding. Alongside a booming tech industry, an even more booming survival industry emerged. Guidebooks were published on how to survive the impending catastrophe — hide under the table — while there was a healthy trade in bunkers and overpriced survival packs.

In a preemptive move, the U.S. Federal Reserve loosened monetary policy. The burgeoning internet and its early successes had brought technology to the masses. Together with loose financing conditions and growing public enthusiasm at the turn of the millennium, this ignited a unique boom on the stock markets, especially for tech and internet stocks.

The world did not come to an end. Instead, people started to wonder what would become of companies that had no chance of turning a profit and depended on continuous injections of investor funding. Doubts began to spread, share prices started to fall, and over the course of the year 2000, the dot-com bubble burst.

The final nail in the coffin of the 2000s bubble came on September 11, 2001. The terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York made it seem as though the world really was ending. Air traffic shut down, war broke out, and a recession followed. Stock markets plunged, and they just kept falling.

Once again, the U.S. Federal Reserve stepped in to save the economy and the financial markets. Interest rates were slashed, credit became cheap, and with this, the economic downturn was slowed. Starting in early 2003, the stock markets began to recover. Slowly at first, then faster. The exceptionally low interest rates stimulated economic activity, albeit not as intended. The burst tech bubble was soon replaced by a gigantic housing bubble, especially in the United States.

The film The Big Short begins with a quote from Mark Twain:

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

History provides us with many examples that show how stubbornly and for how long people, indeed entire societies, have clung to false beliefs. A good example is the geocentric worldview that many held in the Middle Ages: they believed that the universe revolved around the Earth. Galileo Galilei held an opposing belief and was threatened with death and excommunicated from the Church for it. The Church’s self-image and vested interests forbade such an inconvenient truth. But as it is with the truth, a point comes when it can no longer be denied.

The same was true of the financial crisis of 2007–2009. Behind many financial products on offer were mortgage-backed securities of little or no value. This truth, too, eventually could not be denied. The markets for these securities and the financial products built on them collapsed, along with a lot of the banks and financial institutions that held them. In the end, the entire financial system imploded. Major, well-known banks went bankrupt, financial markets dried up, and even healthy companies were put at risk of failure.

The terrifying yet fascinating part was the reaction of governments and central banks — through bailouts. With the exception of Lehman Brothers and a few others, virtually all the major institutions were saved. At the time, Chancellor Angela Merkel guaranteed the German public that their bank deposits were safe — a promise she likely could not have kept if it had been called out.

The central element of the bailouts was and still is the printing of money. Governments generously rescued important, systemically relevant banks and companies with the input of fresh money. Central banks financed and continue to finance this by purchasing government bonds, cutting interest rates, and providing very favorable financing conditions to banks.

This point is very important. When a central bank buys an outstanding government bond, that means it is increasing the money supply or printing money. In the film Oeconomia, Peter Praet, at that time the chief economist of the ECB, says this quite explicitly: “It is not physical money, but electronic.”

Printing money means increasing the amount of money in circulation. And that results in all of our money getting watered down. Ultimately, this makes it worth less since there’s more money but the same amount of goods.

When new money is created — that is, when money is inflated and then spent, no matter what it’s spent on — prices will eventually rise, and the money everyone else holds becomes less valuable. Put another way, when new money is created, everyone who already holds money is slightly dispossessed.

Only those who receive the new money first benefit, which is usually the banks, shareholders, and companies as well as borrowers and thus the government. Also benefiting are those who hold the goods or assets that are first purchased with the newly created money. This primarily includes real estate, stocks, and tangible assets in general.

Such inflation must be distinguished from individual price increases. If the demand for city-center locations suddenly rises because people are moving from the country to the city, property prices in city centers will rise, while they fall in the countryside. With inflation, prices rise almost everywhere. Price increases caused by rising demand or falling supply, such as after a poor harvest, are limited and are offset by a drop in prices elsewhere.

Inflation acts like a tax, but it isn’t perceived as such. The government could just as well take a small amount of money from every business and citizen to cover its spending instead of creating new money by issuing a government bond. In practice, it would be the same thing, only it wouldn’t be so easy, and many people would complain and might vote those politicians out in the next election.

Inflation is vague, and in public perception it’s not the government’s fault but rather that of others who are creating shortages of goods and profiting from rising prices. Political and public scapegoats for rising prices can always be found.

The former ECB chief economist, Peter Praet, states quite clearly that the functioning of today’s financial and economic system depends on the creation of more and more money — in other words, on continuous inflation. If the last financial crises have shown us anything, it’s the automatic reaction of governments: printing money. And crises will always keep coming for a variety of reasons: the ongoing climate crisis, pandemics, wars, migration, demographics, etc. Justification and excuses for printing money can always be found.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

A major and very valid criticism of a sound monetary system, in which money cannot be multiplied uncontrollably, is that it provides no way to intervene quickly by increasing the money supply in severe crises. That’s true. You would have to save beforehand, to set aside reserves.

And if there is one thing politicians cannot do, it’s save. There is always a good reason to spend money, whether it’s simply doing good, solving problems, winning over voters before an election, or even supporting a friendly entrepreneur in one’s own constituency.

The alternative would be to raise taxes in order to finance these unforeseen expenses. That would be politically and economically counterproductive. It would scare off voters and take away their purchasing power.

The crucial point is this: without the ability to print money at will, the boom that precedes a crisis wouldn’t arise in the first place, or at the very least would be much smaller. And the subsequent crises would also be a lot smaller. This is evident in the economic cycles of the 19th century, when a strict gold standard was in place.

Yes, there were numerous crises at the time. But they were short and less severe. And periods of falling prices certainly did not end in the dreaded deflationary spiral.

The ability to print unlimited amounts of money leads to correspondingly large misallocations, which then lead to correspondingly large corrections, and therefore, crises. These crises in turn trigger even more money-printing, and on it goes.

The greater the misallocations beforehand, the greater the corrections afterward. A healthy monetary system leads to sounder economic decisions, sustainable upturns, and brief downturns in which misallocations are corrected.

Money that cannot be arbitrarily multiplied limits misallocations during a boom, and accordingly, limits corrections during a downturn.

At the height of the financial crisis, on October 31, 2008, an anonymous person or group published the Bitcoin white paper — six weeks after Lehman Brothers, one of the largest banks in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy.

On January 3, 2009, Satoshi Nakamoto launched the Bitcoin blockchain. The very first block was mined. This first block contains the following message:

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”

This was an explicit reference to a headline in The Times on January 3, 2009 — the repeated bailout of a financial system still teetering on the brink of collapse.

Bitcoin was, and still is, the answer to a fragile financial system: to uncontrolled money printing, to willful denial of reality, but also to the unfair and socially unjust expropriation that accompanies money creation.

The cap of 21 million bitcoin and the lack of central control make a policy of inflation impossible. Someone who holds bitcoin cannot be dispossessed by the uncontrolled printing of even more bitcoin.

Nor can they be dispossessed by banks that go bankrupt or deny access to bitcoin, provided they hold their bitcoin in a self-hosted wallet and thereby manage their own access. No central authority can revoke that access.

The timing of Bitcoin’s launch was no coincidence. It was the reaction to a financial system that would have collapsed had money not been printed in a pretty much uncontrolled manner.

Bitcoin is sound money — a response to a broken financial system. It is a system that is not imposed from above. Participation is voluntary and open to anyone. No one with a computer or smartphone and an internet connection can be excluded from it. For many, it’s a lifeline out of the fiat money system that is not sustainably viable.

In contrast to an inflationary and opaque system, Bitcoin is decentralized, transparent, and fundamentally honest.

Discover more in Bitcoin: The Honest Money!
This excerpt is just the beginning. Dive deeper into how inflation devalues your money, your savings, and your time in Bitcoin: The Honest Money by Alex von Frankenberg, Ph.D. The paperback is available now.

Order your copy here!

This post 2007–2009—The Global Financial Crisis and the Birth of Bitcoin first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Alex v. Frankenberg.

I’m pretty sure it was 1971, but it could have been 1972. In any case, it was in kindergarten, and I was five years old. Our teachers had set up a system to motivate us kids to behave well. They had hung a big board on the wall, with all of our names listed. If you were particularly well-behaved, kind, helpful, or polite, they drew a black dot next to your name. Misbehave, and they gave you a red one. It was all about following the kindergarten rules, and the absolute transparency of it motivated most of us to try our best.

At some point, an extra prize was introduced for exceptionally good behavior: a small piece of fabric. From the group’s standpoint, that was worth much more than the top ranking in a row of black dots. And it was tangible. You could prove your elite status, even out in the sandbox.

Eventually, a trading system developed between us kids. For a scrap of fabric, you could get a bucket of sifted sand. For two, you could get a piece of candy. Suddenly, we could trade labor (sifting sand) for status symbols or sweets.

Then one day, a new teacher arrived. For whatever reason, she much more generously handed out those scraps of fabric. She simply changed the rules governing their distribution. All of a sudden, everyone had them, and you had to spend four for a piece of candy instead of two. Some of the kids started to complain. Their hard-earned scraps of fabric were now worth less, and they demanded more of them.

As you’d expect, the fabric scraps were given out more and more freely. Before long, anyone could take as many as they wanted. Eventually, they were lying around all over the place. They were worthless. No one wanted them anymore. You couldn’t trade them for anything. And so, at just five years old, I experienced genuine hyperinflation.

What does this have to do with Bitcoin?

In kindergarten, the rules were simply changed. The new teacher wanted to be nice, we kids whined, and suddenly more and more fabric scraps were handed out.

The rules of Bitcoin simply cannot be changed.

It’s a completely different story with our fiat currencies. They too have rules. The problem is that no one can ensure those rules are actually followed. Here is an example: the European Central Bank is not allowed to permanently finance governments through bond purchases, yet it does so anyway, brazenly and with no one doing—or even being able to do—anything about it. And who would intervene anyway?

Here’s another example. The Maastricht Treaty’s Stability and Growth Pact stipulated that the budget deficits of EU member states could not exceed 3% of their GDP, although permissible exceptions were built in. However, between 2000 and 2010, the Stability Criteria were repeatedly violated without sanctions—not only by Greece (11 times) but also by larger countries such as Italy (seven times), France (six times), and Germany (five times). According to the Maastricht Treaty, there are clear sanctions for countries that unlawfully fail to adhere to the deficit limit. But not once has such a sanction been imposed. No attempt was ever even made.

This may have been politically expedient and justified for whatever reason, but it shows how difficult it is for us to adhere to the rules. It’s like the New Year’s resolutions that we make with the greatest of convictions, but then usually don’t stick to for very long. The result is what matters. Currencies inflate and, sooner or later, become worthless. The U.S. dollar has lost 97% of its value over the last hundred years. The British pound, which originally represented a pound of silver, has suffered the same fate. All because more and more new dollars, euros, or pounds have been created, or to put it differently, printed.

The outcome is the same: when the fabric scraps become worthless, everyone who holds them loses their wealth.

This cannot happen with Bitcoin. Its rules are fixed, and no one controls the system nor can they simply change those rules.

Discover more in Bitcoin: The Honest Money!
This excerpt is just the beginning. Dive deeper into how inflation devalues your money, your savings, and your time in Bitcoin: The Honest Money by Alex von Frankenberg, Ph.D. The paperback is available now.

Order your copy here!

This post The Hyperinflation of 1971 at the Kindergarten first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Alex v. Frankenberg.

When I was a teenager, I delivered newspapers. I earned 10 German marks (DM) per hour. That was enough money to buy 33 scoops of ice cream, since a single scoop only cost 30 cents, or pfennig, as they were back then.

Fast forward to 2025: today, a teenager delivering newspapers earns at most €12 per hour. However, a scoop of ice cream now costs a hefty €1.50, and sometimes more than €2 in the big cities. This means that for every hour of newspaper delivery, you can afford at best a mere eight scoops of ice cream, but it’s often less than that.

The working time of a newspaper boy or girl has been significantly devalued in Germany over the last forty years. An hour’s work now yields only six to eight scoops of ice cream, compared with the 33 scoops it originally earned in the 1980s. That’s a loss of around 80%.

If I had put my 10 DM in a drawer, found them forty years later, and exchanged them for €5, I’d only get about two to three scoops of ice cream—a loss of over 90%.

This concerns inflation and its redistributive effects. It’s not only saved money that’s devalued; it’s also the time that’s spent earning that money—or to be more precise, earning a fixed basket of goods. As money loses value, so does the actual time we spent earning it. On average, we receive far less in real goods for the work we do.

Inflation, the continual devaluation of money, is a huge problem. The global money supply (M2) is estimated at around $120 trillion (see Figure 4). Even at an inflation rate of 4% (and the global rate is likely higher), the M2of approximately $120 trillion implies that $4.8 trillion in purchasing power is destroyed each year. That’s more than the entire gross national product of Germany. Inflation affects billions of people. Almost everyone, in fact. And the less you earn, the more you are dispossessed by inflation. The vast majority of people, which I estimate at around 90% of all citizens, have no way to avoid the devaluation of money. They lose out as their savings are devalued, and their wages fail to keep pace with rising inflation.

Major historical upheavals and revolutions have very often been preceded by inflation, for example, the French Revolution. Currency devaluation also played a significant role in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in AD476, some one thousand years before the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire. Therefore, inflation also represents a serious threat to democratic societies today.

The amount of bitcoin will not increase in the long term. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin, and no one will ever be able to change that. At this point in early 2026, there are already 19.9 million bitcoin, a good 95% of the set amount. This means that any remaining expansion (or new issuance) of bitcoin will amount to just under 5%; not in the next year, but over approximately one hundred fifteen years. Around the year 2140, 100% of all bitcoin will have been mined, and there will simply not be any more. This means that the share of money you hold in bitcoin will not be devalued against a basket of goods over a decade or even a century. Your share won’t be diluted. Bitcoin does not inflate; when measured in bitcoin, goods actually become cheaper over time. So the money you exchange for bitcoin today will buy you at least as many scoops of ice cream in ten years as it does now—and probably more. A lot more. This is the fundamental essence of bitcoin.

Discover more in Bitcoin: The Honest Money!
This excerpt is just the beginning. Dive deeper into how inflation devalues your money, your savings, and your time in Bitcoin: The Honest Money by Alex von Frankenberg, Ph.D. The paperback is available now.

Order your copy here!

This post A Little Story About Inflation – An Excerpt from Bitcoin: The Honest Money first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Alex v. Frankenberg.

Having invested in startups for over twenty years I have deep respect for entrepreneurs trying to build a company. It is so difficult. And more often than not, it doesn’t work out. Developing a whole country, of course, is much more difficult. Many leaders in developing countries don’t even try. They use their short time in power for their own benefit. But some leaders give their best shot. Nayib Bukele made Bitcoin legal tender in El Salvador in September 2021. Since then, the country has shown a remarkable development on so many levels.

The Bitcoin engagement in Bhutan has been rumored for a while. A few weeks ago, we learned about mining operations in Bhutan leading to a significant Bitcoin stack of around 13.000 Bitcoin. That is a lot. Bhutan is leading the world with a Bitcoin stack worth around 30% of its GDP. Per capita every Bhutanese indirectly holds almost 0.02 Bitcoin, at current prices eight times the average monthly income. All of the Bitcoin mining is done with 100% clean and renewable energy, hydro power. Bhutan is the only CO2 negative country in the world and at the same time has the largest Bitcoin stack in relation to its size. That gets Bhutan worldwide attention.

Having traveled six days through this truly beautiful country, then attending the Bhutan Innovation Forum and meeting so many great people including His and Her Majesty I learned a lot. About Bhutan, mindfulness, their development strategy and the role Bitcoin is playing. While traveling I happened to see two Bitcoin mining sites, both were fairly large.

Congratulating Her Majesty, Queen Ashi Tshering Yangdon, on their Bitcoin strategy she smiled and offered to introduce me to His Majesty, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, the Fifth King. During a fifteen minute conversation with him he quickly stated „Hodl, hodl, hodl“. He discovered Bitcoin around 2011. Since 2019 Bhutan is mining Bitcoin. In 2008, when His Majesty became the leader of Bhutan at the age of 28, and several times after, he clearly stated his mission: “As King, I have pledged my life and service for the wellbeing of our country and people.“ His Majesty has been working hard for sixteen years to honestly do that.

And it’s quite a challenge. The economy is running a deficit, dollars are scarce, Bhutan is highly dependent on India, a neighbor, who in 1975 made Sikkim, a neighboring Kingdom, the 16th Indian state. But India is also helping: Building roads, hydro power plants and delivering almost all the Bhutanese imports. The Indian Rupee and the Bhutanese Ngultrum are linked to each other. 70% of the Bhutan economy is based on agriculture, cost of living compared to average income is high, many young people are emigrating to Australia or Canada for better income opportunities. We have heard about domestic violence and alcohol issues, contradicting the notion of the Bhutanese being the happiest people in the world.

Like in El Salvador, Bitcoin is not the silver bullet, it is part of a bigger plan of innovation and modernization. His Majesty’s biggest initiative is building a new center for entrepreneurs, technology, and mindfulness called the „Gelephu Mindfulness City“, a multibillion dollar project in Southern Bhutan. It involves attracting a lot of foreign investments and talent. The other big initiative is Bitcoin. Building on the most significant strength of Bhutan, cheap environmentally friendly hydro power, also its main export to India, the Kingdom has stacked at least 13.000 Bitcoin, maybe more. Expecting a significant value appreciation they are for the most part hodling. Only a little is sold. Bitcoin is about wealth creation. With the Bitcoin bullrun about to happen, in this cycle Bhutan’s Bitcoin stack could exceed its GDP and even foreign debt. Bitcoin benefits exceed pure value creation: They call Bitcoin the energy battery. In winter when there is a lot less rain and India uses less energy, Bhutan can use Bitcoin to import some electricity from India. Bitcoin gives Bhutan access to hard currency like the US dollar or the Euro. Selling and importing more or less everything to and from India Bhutan is notoriously short of foreign currency.

Bitcoin mining creates technical skills. The Bhutanese are capable of running and repairing the mining rigs themselves. Bhutan easily can become a worldwide competence center for clean Bitcoin mining. The newly acquired skills can be expanded to other technical areas. For example, Bhutan implemented a digital national ID card on the Polygon blockchain. Using a wallet the Bhutanese have access to many government services. Around 20% of the Bhutanese have signed up for it. Know-how around Bitcoin and general IT can be the basis for attracting foreign tech investors and startups. Strategically, Bitcoin creates some independence from its strong and still benevolent neighbor India. China is not much of an issue for Bhutan.

His Majesty builds the Bitcoin strategy on the few but distinct assets of Bhutan such as cheap energy, very good English skills, a world leading image of mindfulness and harmony with nature, the capability of not only preserving its rich cultural traditions and history. He aims to improve the happiness of his people including, but not only, its standard of living. Clearly, Bitcoin can be the key element and driver for Bhutan’s future.

Talking about Bitcoin to government officials in Bhutan we sensed some shyness which makes a lot of sense. Bitcoiners don’t brag about it. Bhutan still needs a lot of help from developed countries and international organizations. At the conference I overheard the sentence “I tried to get him to sell, but he refused.” “Hodl, hodl, hodl”, is what His Majesty told me. For sure Bitcoin is creating significant benefits for the Bhutanese on top of value creation.

At age 44, after 16 years in power, His Majesty seems to have the long-term vision to develop this beautiful country in the Himalayan mountains and plenty of time to implement it. As we can see around the world, it is a hell of a job. Bitcoin, clearly, is significantly improving the odds for Bhutan.

This is a guest post by Alex v. Frankenberg. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

This post Bhutan – Another Country Using Bitcoin To Escape Poverty first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Alex v. Frankenberg.