As we moved beyond traveling by foot and horse, beyond the development of affordable commercial air travel, and then, especially, beyond the internet’s Cambrian-like explosion of network power, gold’s **low spatial salability** became an acute flaw even the most ardent “goldbugs” miss.
**Gold is simply hard to transport**.
This is where the Fiat Standard shines. Though fiat’s periodic, human-nature-induced hyperinflations made it a huge step backward in terms of salability across time (storing value), it was a substantial leap forward in terms of salability across space.
However, contrary to common misconception, **Bitcoin moves much faster across space** than fiat, increasing our capacity for long-distance international settlement by about **96 times**.
It completes settlement in about an hour, rather than the current state-of-the-art 3-5 days, or longer, for final international fiat settlement.
Do not confuse the speed of your Visa payment with its final settlement. No settlement occurs when you buy your coffee at Starbucks. Rather, your bank and Starbucks’ bank generally settle 2-3 days later, with each bank taking credit risk to the other along the way, with rare, but occasionally disastrous results.
Bitcoin not only safely settles about every hour, but more importantly as a bearer instrument it has **no credit risk**.
Bitcoin’s protocol and network topology renders national borders irrelevant, which is especially empowering to the world’s most vulnerable and unprepared for fiat hyperinflations (e.g. Venezuela, Turkey, Lebanon).
From this perspective, Bitcoin is better at being fiat than fiat – it’s **even more salable across space** and, because it’s not debt like fiat, **has no credit risk**.
-- an excerpt from the Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter, its 2-minute version can be found here https://www.2minutebitcoin.org/blog/stone-ridge-2020-shareholder-letter
2minutebitcoin
npub1p6…9ej3v
2023-05-12 08:44:40
Author Public Key
npub1p63d4vekvuql9zltpp4dezzfk2xxfgjsfqyglf4ju4syalekn4csn9ej3vPublished at
2023-05-12 08:44:40Event JSON
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"pubkey": "0ea2dab3366701f28beb086adc8849b28c64a25048088fa6b2e5604eff369d71",
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"kind": 1,
"tags": [],
"content": "As we moved beyond traveling by foot and horse, beyond the development of affordable commercial air travel, and then, especially, beyond the internet’s Cambrian-like explosion of network power, gold’s **low spatial salability** became an acute flaw even the most ardent “goldbugs” miss.\n\n**Gold is simply hard to transport**.\n\nThis is where the Fiat Standard shines. Though fiat’s periodic, human-nature-induced hyperinflations made it a huge step backward in terms of salability across time (storing value), it was a substantial leap forward in terms of salability across space.\n\nHowever, contrary to common misconception, **Bitcoin moves much faster across space** than fiat, increasing our capacity for long-distance international settlement by about **96 times**.\nIt completes settlement in about an hour, rather than the current state-of-the-art 3-5 days, or longer, for final international fiat settlement.\n\nDo not confuse the speed of your Visa payment with its final settlement. No settlement occurs when you buy your coffee at Starbucks. Rather, your bank and Starbucks’ bank generally settle 2-3 days later, with each bank taking credit risk to the other along the way, with rare, but occasionally disastrous results.\n\nBitcoin not only safely settles about every hour, but more importantly as a bearer instrument it has **no credit risk**.\n\nBitcoin’s protocol and network topology renders national borders irrelevant, which is especially empowering to the world’s most vulnerable and unprepared for fiat hyperinflations (e.g. Venezuela, Turkey, Lebanon). \n\nFrom this perspective, Bitcoin is better at being fiat than fiat – it’s **even more salable across space** and, because it’s not debt like fiat, **has no credit risk**.\n\n\n-- an excerpt from the Stone Ridge 2020 Shareholder Letter, its 2-minute version can be found here https://www.2minutebitcoin.org/blog/stone-ridge-2020-shareholder-letter",
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}