Bitcoin surpasses gold standard as superior money, says Ammous

Ammous places Bitcoin above the gold standard

Can a currency without a state, central bank, or physical bars replace gold as the global monetary anchor? Saifedean Ammous, an economics professor at the American University of Beirut and author of "The Bitcoin Standard," believes so. In an interview published by Libre Mercado, the Lebanese economist states that Bitcoin is "a superior alternative" to the gold standard, although he maintains that the latter was "humanity's greatest achievement in economics." The thesis is not new, but the messenger is: an academic who declares himself a former gold enthusiast and now defends a digital asset with a cap of 21 million units.

Ammous's central argument is logistical, not ideological. Gold is physical, which necessitates securing, transporting, and protecting it, historically pushing its management toward centralization. Governments ended up controlling the monetary market because they controlled the vaults. Bitcoin, however, is digital and its supply is limited by code, not by the will of a central bank. That is the hook: monetary decentralization as a guiding principle, in line with Nassim Taleb's criticism—who wrote the book's preface—of systems where no one has skin in the game.

What Ammous says about the gold standard and Hayek

Ammous does not reject gold. He positions it as humanity's great monetary achievement and recalls that the 19th century, under the gold standard, was a period of peace and economic freedom that coincided with many modern inventions. But he insists it is no longer the best way to organize the system. His intellectual reference is Friedrich Hayek, who in the 1980s antiestéticared we would never have strong money again and left the door open for a parallel system. For Ammous, that innovation is Bitcoin: it incorporates gold's supply limitation and price universality, but adds 21st-century factors.

The author also dismisses dollarization experiments like those in Ecuador or Panama. He acknowledges that they have achieved good currency management by giving up their own monetary policy, but reminds us that the dollar remains in the hands of the Federal Reserve. It is a better alternative, he says, but "far from being a true solution."

Confiscation: where consensus breaks down

The issue generating the most tension is Bitcoin's supposed non-confiscatability. One sector of analysis argues that private keys can be memorized or hidden on paper, and that no judge can seize what they cannot find. Against this, others point out that police have seized Bitcoin in real operations, which is only possible if the holder provides the keys or they are located on physical media. The discussion turns into a technical nuance: confiscating is not the same as losing keys or surrendering them voluntarily under pressure. The line between the two is finer than both sides admit.

Chinese Bitcoin and electricity dependence

Another open front is the geographic concentration of "hash" power. Data available at the time of the discussion placed more than 80% of mining capacity in China, which critics say makes Bitcoin vulnerable to Beijing's political decisions. Defenders respond that the network has already faced internal attacks from miners and survived, and that the Chinese government has had no incentives to attack it yet. The debate remains open.

To this is added dependence on the internet and electricity. An electromagnetic pulse, some argue, could leave a holder without access to their funds. The technical response is that the recovery seed—twelve words—is enough to restore the wallet on any device. Silver plates and Faraday cages appear in the conversation as homemade protection measures.

Is Bitcoin a currency or a speculative asset?

The most repeated objection is that Bitcoin may have value, but it is not a currency in the sense of the euro or the dollar. It cannot pay taxes, is not tied to the state, and its technical capacity to handle daily transaction volume is limited. Defenders counter with an analogy: saying Bitcoin cannot handle current volume is like saying in 1900 that the automobile is junk because it goes 5 km/h. The difference, skeptics counter-argue, is that many car brands disappeared, and those holding stock in the wrong one saw no return.

Volatility is another friction point. Ammous himself acknowledges that Bitcoin's price fluctuation is not good news, because money should serve to preserve value, but he trusts that the long term will settle the trend. Faith, in any case, is not an asset.

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With these pieces on the table, the question is not whether Bitcoin is better or worse than gold. It is whether anyone today knows exactly what "better" means when talking about money.