I really like that story at the beginning. Unfortunately, the author uses it to construct a false analogy to Bitcoin. The same article could have been written

I really like that story at the beginning. Unfortunately, the author uses it to construct a false analogy to Bitcoin. The same article could have been written about the Internet of 1999. And it would have been wrong for a lot of the same reasons. Here's what the author is missing: the reason that Bitcoin exists. It's not about the gold bugs, although they get the talking head appearances. Should inflation indeed prove "transitory," the Bitcoin exchange rate is getting taken to the woodshed. I suspect this will be the outcome because gold has performed so abysmally. Gold traders know for a fact that inflation is transitory, and they're putting their money on the outcome. Rather, Bitcoin is about censorship resistant money. That means that Bitcoin makes it hard for others to implement exclusionary rules that target specific individuals or groups. Contrast this with the government-controlled currencies, especially the US dollar. They have been weaponized and weaponized again. Against individuals for domestic law enforcement. Against other countries because the consequence of wars between big countries is so horrifying. All over the world, the call rings out to use money as a proxy for violence. Bitcoin and its censorship-resistant properties stand in the way of this Juggernaut. The author doesn't mention this once. And this is what the author misses. When the goldbugs fade into the rear-view mirror and the world wakes up to the possibility that printing money can cause deflation, what will be left of Bitcoin's value proposition is censorship resistance. And in this regard, there will be no other alternative.