Educational information, not financial advice.
"The Bitcoin Standard" (Saifedean Ammous, 2018) argues that bitcoin can play the role gold once did: a neutral base money that governments cannot print.
The problem
Under the gold standard, banks and states repeatedly suspended convertibility when it suited them. The Bank of England, for example, suspended gold payments in 1797 and left gold in 1931. A standard is only as strong as the ability to opt out of it.
Bitcoin's answer
- Verifiable: anyone can check the total supply with a full node.
- Self-custodied: no vault that can be closed. Your keys are your reserve.
- Settles globally without a central bank in the middle.
The grounded version
A full "Bitcoin standard" would be a long, gradual process, and debates remain about prices falling in bitcoin terms (see fixed supply and deflation). The modest, already-true version: anyone can hold savings in a money with fixed rules, today, by choice.