Why is Skiing So D*mn Expensive?

Skiers have been complaining about the rising cost of the sport for as long as I can remember. Skiing has always been a beloved winter pastime, but the rising cost of the sport is pricing many out of the slopes.

Single-day tickets that once cost just a few dollars, now exceed well over $300, leaving skiers wondering why their favorite hobby has become so unattainable.

[Figure 1]: Article from 1981 complaining about $20 lift tickets

Whether you’re a weekend warrior on a budget, or an out-of-state enthusiast with a family of five, the perception of snow sports as an increasingly exclusive activity is widespread.

I share the frustrations of the masses, but arrive at a different root cause than most. Media outlets, seasonal workers, and ski-bums point the finger at a host of reasons such as corporate greed, rising operational costs, and increased participation as the driver behind the price hikes.

While these factors may hold some merit, they fail to explain the true underlying cause of rising prices:

the erosion of purchasing power due to inflation, and the mechanics of central banking at large.

Let's dive down the money rabbit hole, and go on an exploration of how monetary policy, inflation, and economic forces intersect, to examine the real reason behind the "increasing cost" of skiing and snowboarding.

The Conventional Narrative

[Figure 2]: Retro ski tickets displayed in the Colorado Snowsports Museum

Articles and news reports across ski and lifestyle publications have highlighted the upward trajectory of skiing costs and proposed various culprits:

• Greedy Corporations: Corporations like Vail Resorts are often accused of prioritizing profit over affordability. Worker strikes and participant boycotts have become more common over time. While corporate consolidation is a valid concern, these companies are simply responding to incentives created by the current monetary system. The detailed reasons behind this dynamic, including the role of cheap credit, are explored further in following sections.

• Fancier Equipment and Infrastructure: Some point to rising costs from state-of-the-art gondolas, high-speed lifts, and luxurious on-mountain dining. Although such advancements enhance the experience, they overshadow the efficiency gains that these technologies bring.

• Growing Participation: Others argue that increasing demand, fueled by newcomers to the sport, has led to "pricing out" middle-class skiers. However, many resorts have expanded capacity with more skiable terrain, larger parking lots, and higher, capacity lifts, mitigating this strain.

These explanations seem reasonable at face value, but they fail to account for a crucial piece of the puzzle: the monetary system itself.

Let me explain.

Measuring Costs in M2 Money Supply

To understand how skiing costs have changed over time, we must measure them against the M2 money supply, a broad measure of circulating money that includes cash, checking deposits, and easily convertible near money.

[Figure 3]: An Aspen lift ticket from March 23, 1948.

This comparison is like adjusting the lines on a ruler to account for it's ever growing expansion; it allows us to see the real scale of changes over time.

By adjusting for M2, we separate the effects of monetary expansion- which drives up nominal prices; from other factors, providing a clearer picture of real price trends.

When viewed in this way, the cost of skiing has remained remarkably stable over the last 60 years, even trending slightly downward.

Here’s what the data shows:

• In 1962, a daily lift ticket cost $5.00. Today, that same ticket is over $300. However, when measured in M2-adjusted terms, the cost of skiing in 2024 is nearly identical to what it was in 1962, even trending slightly downward.

Season passes reveal a similar trend.

• Since 2008, M2-adjusted prices have fluctuated slightly but remained largely consistent; despite the USD value of these tickets going exponential over the same timeframe. The spike in 2020–2021, driven by a flood of new money entering the system during the COVID-19 pandemic, is already normalizing.

This analysis reveals that the apparent “rise” in skiing costs is not due to corporate greed, increased demand, or fancy new infrastructure.

Instead, it’s an illusion created by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, which devalue the dollar and erode your purchasing power.

While the M2 money supply reveals the inflationary impact of new money creation, it also illustrates how inflation widens the gap between asset holders and wage earners. Those who own assets see their nominal wealth increase as asset prices rise.

However, this perceived "wealth" only holds water if the assets outpace the overall rise in prices.

For instance, someone who purchased a $25 million home in 2008 and now sees it valued at $100M may appear to have "gained" $75 million. But, if comparable homes have followed the same trajectory, their purchasing power has not truly changed.

This dynamic underscores how inflation distorts wealth perception while eroding the financial stability of wage earners.

The Real Cause of "Rising Prices"

The data is clear: the perceived rise in skiing costs is primarily a symptom of monetary inflation.

[Figure 4]: Vintage photo of a man skiing from Colorado Snowsports Museum

As central banks print more currency, the purchasing power of the dollar diminishes, making everything from groceries to ski passes appear more expensive.

The USD amount of skiing may have risen in nominal terms; but in real terms, the price remained stable. Inflation and money printing are essentially two sides of the same coin: expanding the money supply leads to higher prices, which many mischaracterize as "inflation."

Additionally, the monetary system itself creates incentives that distort competition. The Cantillon Effect explains how new money entering the economy disproportionately benefits those closest to its creation, such as large corporations like Vail Resorts with access to cheap credit.

This dynamic encourages centralization and monopolistic behavior, as corporations can use artificially low borrowing costs to expand operations, acquire competitors, and dominate markets.

While this might seem like a failure of capitalism, it’s actually a product of fiat monetary policy distorting natural market forces.

[Figure 5]: K. Smith (red sweater) and Zane Doyle (on Smith's left) with other skiers gathered around a ski school sign at Brighton.

For example, Vail Resorts’ ability to consolidate and control numerous ski destinations is less about inherent greed and more about operating within a system that rewards access to easy money.

Under a sound money system such as Bitcoin or gold, monopolies would only persist if they were truly efficient, delivering the most value at the lowest cost to consumers.

This distinction highlights the importance of understanding how monetary systems shape economic behavior and contribute to the illusion of rising costs.

By measuring skiing prices in Bitcoin, gold, or M2 money supply, we can see through the illusion of fiat currency.

While it’s valid to feel frustrated by high prices, understanding the root cause allows us to approach the problem more constructively.

Skiing on The Bitcoin Standard

Sound money advocates understand that the monetary system we use today is inherently inflationary; designed to make prices rise indefinitely. While the Federal Reserve’s target of 2% annual inflation might seem harmless, it quietly erodes purchasing power, halving it every 35 years.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, exponential growth in debt has compounded this issue, with real cost-of-living increases likely closer to 8-14% per year.

Everyone feels the effects of the monetary expansion, whether through higher grocery bills or the soaring price of skiing.

Bitcoiners have responded by adopting a different perspective, measuring the price of goods and services in a money with a fixed supply that cannot be manipulated. This is called living a Bitcoin Standard, and the results are eye-opening:

• In 2013, a single Bitcoin could purchase a day pass. By the 2016/2017 season, that same Bitcoin could buy a full-season pass.

As Bitcoin’s purchasing power continues to grow, Bitcoiners have begun measuring prices in Satoshi’s (fractions of Bitcoin, referred to as sats).

When we apply this way of thinking to skiing, we see that prices have decreased significantly.

• In 2016, a season pass cost $809, or about 100M sats. In 2024, despite a higher dollar price of $1,100 (a 36% increase in USD), the same pass costs only 2M sats—a dramatic decrease in real terms.

• The same trend is true for day passes, having decreased from nearly 40B sats when Bitcoin began trading, to around 400K sats in 2025.

This shift in perspective reveals a stark truth:

while fiat currencies are designed to erode wealth, Bitcoin was engineered to preserve it.

Bitcoin serves as a fixed measuring stick against the world, revealing the true "price" of things without the distortion from inflation.

However, it’s important to note that Bitcoin’s "deflationary" nature doesn’t inherently lower prices.

Rather, technological innovation, unleashed by efficient capital allocation in a sound money system, drives production costs down, leading to lower prices in real terms.

A Hopeful Outlook

Bitcoin offers a solution to the challenge we are all facing. With its fixed supply of 21 million units, it ensures that purchasing power is not eroded by inflation.

[Figure 6]: Park City's new "Town Lift" triple chair will transport skiers from the bottom of historic Main Street to Mid Mountain

As Jeff Booth highlights in his book, The Price of Tomorrow, deflation is a natural force that makes goods and services cheaper over time.

Advancements in technology improve efficiency, reduce input costs, and enhance consumer experiences.

This principle is particularly relevant to the ski industry, where innovations such as high-speed lifts and gondolas are often cited as driving up costs. However, these advancements actually reduce costs by increasing efficiency and minimizing labor requirements.

For instance:

• High-speed lifts can transport more skiers per hour, reducing the need for multiple chairlifts and their associated labor and maintenance costs.

• State-of-the-art gondolas are increasingly energy-efficient, compact, and capable of handling higher volumes, lowering infrastructure demands over time.

These technological improvements should naturally make skiing more affordable, but the inflation of fiat currencies erodes purchasing power. This creates the illusion that these innovations are inherently expensive.

While innovation demands capital, inflation distorts the process by making borrowing cheaper for some and inflating the costs of resources over time.

Under a sound money system, where capital is allocated efficiently, advancements would drive costs down rather than up, ensuring that businesses and consumers alike benefit from the true economic value of innovation.

[Figure 7]: Luft Seilbahn Corviglia- Piz Nair St. Moritz, gondola

For individual skiers and snowboarders, adopting a Bitcoin standard offers the potential to reclaim affordable access to the mountains, not necessarily because resorts will lower prices, but because the money used will hold its value.

Understanding inflation’s impact allows us to see beyond superficial explanations and envision a world where deflation and technological progress can work together to make skiing, and countless other experiences—more accessible to all.

I’m not suggesting you postpone your adventures waiting for prices to drop in Bitcoin terms, but I urge you to take steps to protect your purchasing power.

Storing your savings in Bitcoin can hedge against the effects of inflation, ensuring your hard-earned money remains valuable over the long term.

In the future, who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to afford not just one, but multiple season passes, without worrying about being priced out of the sport you love.

Footnotes:

• Day pass prices are based on historical data from a representative selection of resorts; including Vail, Stratton, Mt. Snow, Killington, Bear Creek Mountain Club, Park City, Squaw Valley, and Stowe.

• Some prices used in this dataset may reflect elevated holiday rates.

• Season pass prices reflect the full-price cost of the Vail Resorts EPIC Unlimited Pass.

• Bitcoin prices are based on the value of BTC on January 1 of each respective year. M2 money supply figures are sourced from the January print of each year.

Sources:

Historical Lift Ticket Prices and Cost Analysis

Lift Tickets Anyone? Lift Ticket Prices Back in the Day vs. Today

New England Ski History: Ticket Prices

When Did Ski Resort Lift Tickets Become So Expensive?

Historic Epic Lift Pass Prices

Contemporary Pricing and Corporate Actions

Vail Resorts Official Website

New Lift Ticket Price at Vail: $299 for One Day

Vail Expensive Lift Tickets

Broader Economic and Inflationary Analysis

M2 Money Supply Data

Economic Factors Affecting Ski Resort Pricing

Alternate Inflation Charts

The Real Cost of Living Increase Index

Socioeconomic and Labor Dynamics

Ski Patrol Union Strike at Park City

Historic Newspaper Coverage

Images

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Bullshit Jobs Exist Because The System Needs Them. A Bitcoin World Would Not.

In his 2018 book Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber described a strange modern affliction that hits all too close to home: millions of people—often well-educated and decently paid—secretly believe their jobs are meaningless. Not just boring or repetitive, but completely pointless. Entire sectors, he argued, exist to keep people busy doing tasks that make no real contribution to society. It’s a damning critique of how modern economies misallocate time, capital, and human energy.

While Graeber diagnosed the symptoms brilliantly, he misidentified the heart of the disease. His conclusion—that capitalism itself is to blame—confuses the free market with the manipulated atrocity we find ourselves living under today. In truth, we haven’t had real capitalism for decades. What we have is a fiat-driven system of cronyism, central bank interventions, and artificially inflated bureaucracies. It's not capitalism creating bullshit jobs—it’s a monetary system that not only rewards them, but requires them, in order to survive.

Graeber’s Core Insight: Meaningless Work in a Sick System

In Bullshit Jobs, Graeber categorized five archetypes of pointless labor—roles that feel fake not just to outsiders, but to the workers themselves. He correctly argues that these jobs exist not to produce value, but to preserve appearances, inflate hierarchies, or smooth over problems that shouldn't exist in the first place.

Each category speaks to a different failure of the system—not a failure of the market, but a failure of the bad incentives created by debt-fueled fiat economies:

Go-Betweens

Intermediaries who exist only because systems are needlessly complex or fragmented.

Examples:

• Corporate “liaisons” who simply pass emails between departments with incompatible software.
• IT consultants hired to manage integrations between bloated, outdated legacy systems.
• Sales coordinators whose job is to facilitate calls that would be unnecessary if pricing were transparent.

In a fiat economy, complexity isn’t punished—it’s rewarded with bigger budgets, more headcount, and greater organizational sprawl. Go-betweens thrive when layers of opacity are preserved for the sake of power, not productivity.

Flunkies

Employees hired to make their superiors feel important, often performing ceremonial or status-enhancing tasks.

Examples:

• Personal assistants to executives who insist on being shielded from their own calendar.
• Interns hired solely to greet guests, refill coffee, or be seen in meetings to validate a sense of importance.
• Staffers in large bureaucracies whose only function is to echo or flatter leadership talking points.

In hierarchies where status is everything, appearances matter more than outcomes. Fiat systems allow unproductive prestige roles to persist because they’re paid for not with earned revenue, but with cheap money and inflated budgets.

Box Tickers

People hired to fill out forms, compile reports, or meet compliance requirements that don’t actually improve outcomes.

Examples:

• Diversity officers required to generate DEI metrics, regardless of any cultural change.
• Corporate social responsibility managers producing annual reports no customer reads.
• Teachers forced to spend hours documenting lesson plans to meet administrative quotas.

In a heavily regulated, fiat-backed economy, the optics of accountability matter more than actual impact. Compliance becomes a job category in itself, rather than a byproduct of good practice. Box tickers serve systems that measure inputs, not results.

Duct Tapers

Workers who are constantly fixing or compensating for systemic problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Examples:

• Customer service agents apologizing endlessly for broken products or poor policies they can’t change.
• IT help desk workers who spend their day resetting passwords and restarting machines because the core tech is outdated.
• Administrative staff who manually transfer data between platforms because software isn’t interoperable.

When companies are incentivized to maximize short-term profits over long-term fixes, they’ll paper over problems rather than address root causes. In fiat economies, cheap labor and abundant capital make it “easier” to throw people at the problem than to solve it systemically.

Taskmasters

Managers who create unnecessary layers of oversight, meetings, and control over people who could function independently.

Examples:

• Mid-level project managers whose main function is to schedule daily stand-ups and report to other project managers.
• Executive VPs of “Strategy” whose deliverables are vague decks, vision statements, and memos that lead nowhere.
• Bureaucratic supervisors whose main task is to track productivity metrics in systems where trust is absent.

In a fiat economy bloated with credit and managerialism, tasks multiply to justify salaries. When failure is subsidized, leadership structures grow horizontally rather than vertically—layer upon layer of oversight, all afraid to relinquish control.

The Fiat System: A Bullshit Job Generator

Graeber’s classification of bullshit jobs—while often humorous and sharp in its critique—unveils something far more tragic than absurd: that millions of people quietly know their work is unnecessary, even fake. These jobs do not emerge from organic market demand. They are not expressions of entrepreneurship or voluntary exchange. Together, these five categories describe a world where labor is not a measure of value, but of institutional inertia. These roles flourish in both public and private sectors—not because consumers demand them, but because inflated budgets, compliance culture, and fiat financing allow them to persist.

These jobs aren’t sustained by market forces. They’re sustained by a system where prices lie, failure is subsidized, and truth is distorted by monetary manipulation

This is the core of the illusion: we assume that because people are working, value is being created. But that assumption breaks down under the slightest bit of scrutiny. People spend entire careers producing reports that are never read, sitting in meetings to justify other meetings, correcting problems that were only created to support a job that didn’t need to exist. The machine feeds itself. It doesn’t matter if the work contributes to the well-being of others—it matters only that the system keeps spinning, and that workers continue to receive enough compensation to remain dependent.

What Graeber sees as a failure of capitalism is more accurately a distortion caused by fiat money. Capitalism, at its core, is a system of voluntary exchange based on real prices, risk, and reward. When practiced under sound money like Bitcoin, it eliminates inefficiency through natural selection: bad businesses fail, waste is punished, and success is measured by the satisfaction of others. Fiat breaks this feedback loop. When central banks can create money out of nothing, prices no longer reflect scarcity or human preference. Instead, they reflect proximity to the monetary spigot—cheap credit, government subsidy, or regulatory protection. What we’re actually living under is fiat statism: a fusion of centralized money and bureaucratic economics, where survival depends not on serving others—but on staying close to that spigot of freshly printed money.

The result is an economic environment where failure is propped up and fake work can thrive. Bureaucracies multiply not because they’re needed, but because they’re budgeted. Managers manage people who don’t need managing. Employees fulfill procedures written not for function but for liability. Industries flourish around complexity that ought to have been simplified—compliance departments, endless back-office layers, entire consultancies devoted to navigating the very red tape that sustains them.

The absurdity compounds. But the money keeps flowing, so the jobs stay alive.

Austrian economists warned of this dynamic. They spoke of malinvestment—capital flowing into unsustainable ventures not because of actual demand, but because artificially low interest rates signal false opportunities. In a fiat system, companies grow bloated on debt and subsidies, not on efficiency or innovation. Their labor force is not trimmed to serve a need but expanded to justify the illusion of growth. These bullshit jobs are not side effects—they are symptoms of the disease.

Jeff Booth, in The Price of Tomorrow, takes this a step further. He points out that exponential technological advancement should be driving massive deflation. We should be working less, owning more, and watching our cost of living fall as tools become cheaper, faster, and more powerful. We’ve been taught to fear deflation. But why? Under a deflationary system, prices fall as technology improves. That’s good. It means we’re getting more for less.

As Booth argues, technological deflation is the natural state of progress. Software eats costs. Automation replaces labor. Machines don’t just augment human effort—they replace entire industries. That’s not a crisis. That’s success. Why did calculators, cameras, and GPS units become free inside our phones? Because capitalism, unimpeded, drives marginal costs toward zero.

The fiat system fights this progress.

It needs people to work more hours each year to sustain consumption. It sees abundance not as a triumph—but a threat to employment statistics. We print more money to simulate growth, forcing people to work longer hours to maintain the same standard of living. We don’t celebrate efficiency—we subsidize redundancy. We don’t liberate the worker—we invent more work to keep them occupied. Booth’s insight aligns with the Austrian warning: our system can’t tolerate real progress, because its foundation is debt. And debt must be repaid—either with inflated currency or with your time.

That’s why we invent bullshit jobs: to mask the fact that we no longer need as much labor. Instead of letting people benefit from deflation, we chain them to fake work just to scrape by.

Bitcoin as Economic Truth

When the system is honest, the jobs that existed to game it disappear.

Bitcoin is the answer to the madness—not because it fixes labor directly, but because it fixes the signal. Under a Bitcoin standard, jobs must justify themselves. There is no central bank to fund pointless initiatives. There is no inflation to subsidize fake productivity. Scarce money forces honest decisions. It enforces efficiency through economic gravity. With no way to counterfeit capital, companies must produce real value to survive.

Because Bitcoin is deflationary by nature, technological progress no longer needs to be masked or feared. Prices fall naturally, and people gain time instead of losing it. Bitcoin embraces deflation. It lets prices fall. It lets time be reclaimed. It rewards productivity, not motion.

That shift is monumental. In a world where money gains purchasing power over time, the need to work simply to stay afloat disappears. People can save. They can rest. They can walk away from meaningless jobs. They are no longer required to “stay busy” just to maintain purchasing power. Instead, they can focus on work that matters—or no work at all. Automation doesn’t have to be a threat to employment. It becomes a gift. It liberates time. Bitcoin allows that liberation to be economically viable.

This is where time preference enters the equation. High time preference—prioritizing the now at the expense of the future—is incentivized by fiat. Why save when money melts? Why build when consumption is easier? Bitcoin reverses this. Its fixed supply makes future value meaningful. With a low time preference, individuals can plan. They can invest in projects that may not pay off for decades. They can work less, save more, and spend time on family, health, or creativity. The bullshit job dissolves not because it is outlawed—but because it no longer makes sense.

Even the social fabric frays under fiat pressure. Graeber noted how dual-income households have become the norm, not because families want two full-time jobs, but because one income is no longer enough. And when both parents are gone, more jobs are created to take their place—childcare, food delivery, after-school programs—more economic activity, but less connection. Bitcoin begins to restore sanity here too. With real savings and lower cost of living, families can reclaim their time. One parent might choose to stay home. Or both could work part time.

It’s not just economic reordering—it’s civilizational repair.

And underneath it all lies the most important piece: cryptography. The real innovation behind Bitcoin isn’t some abstract “blockchain” (a term captured by marketing departments and crypto scams). It’s the cold, uncompromising certainty of math. Cryptography enforces the rules. It makes fraud impossible and favoritism obsolete. In a world built on code as law, no one gets to cheat. No one can print more Bitcoin. No one can override the protocol at will. It is a trustless system—not because it lacks trust, but because it removes the need for it.

This is the cypherpunk revolution. Not through protest or policy, but through protocol. Not through persuasion, but through code. Bitcoin doesn’t appeal to power—it routes around it. And in doing so, it renders entire categories of bullshit jobs obsolete. There is no need for compliance departments when the rules are enforced mathematically. There is no room for rent-seeking middlemen when value moves peer-to-peer. There is no demand for bureaucratic managers when coordination happens through open protocols. When the system is honest, the jobs that existed to game it disappear. This is how freedom scales: not by politics, but by cryptographic enforcement.

In this system:

• There are no subsidies for zombie corporations.

• Bad businesses fail—and their resources are reallocated.

• Jobs must create value or they disappear.

The question is no longer “how do we create more jobs?” but “why are we still working so much?” If the goal of civilization is to increase leisure, abundance, and freedom, then bullshit jobs are a betrayal of progress. They are not signs of a healthy economy—they are symptoms of one in decline.

This is how bullshit jobs die: not by legislation, but by exposure to reality.

Bitcoin is an Exit from the Bullshit Economy

David Graeber revealed a deep dysfunction in the modern economy: millions of people doing work that neither inspires them nor benefits others. He saw clearly that millions are trapped in labor that feels hollow—labor that exists not because it’s needed, but because the system would collapse without the illusion of productivity. His instinct was to blame capitalism. But the deeper truth is more radical: this isn’t capitalism at all. It’s fiat deception masquerading as a market.

Bitcoin clears away the fog. It restores price integrity. It aligns incentives. It rewards value, not velocity. In a Bitcoin world, we don’t need to create fake work to keep people fed. We let prices fall. We let time be reclaimed. We let people walk away from bullshit.

Bullshit jobs exist because the system needs them. A Bitcoin world would not.

In that world, we work to create—not to comply. We build what lasts. We pursue freedom. And we remember that the goal of progress was never more jobs—it was less work for a better life.

That’s not just a better economy. That’s a better life.

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All images are credit of Hes, but you are free to download and use for any purpose. If you find joy from my work, please feel free to send a zap. Enjoy life on a Bitcoin standard.

The Bitcoin time perspective is wild. Reflecting on it has been profoundly eye-opening, and once it has been seen— there is no returning to our prior ways.

Ever since venturing down the rabbit hole that we call Bitcoin, I’ve started making significant life decisions and forming nuanced opinions on polarizing topics based on the implications of multi-generational timeframes. Before Bitcoin, I spent money recklessly, leading a fast-paced and impulsive lifestyle. Even in my early days of learning about Bitcoin, I hadn’t fully seen the light. I would still blow the occasional $500 bar tab or buy some flashy gadget I didn’t need. Living in the moment has its merits, but so does considering the time beyond our own lives. Now, I pause before purchases and decisions, always reflecting on how they might impact the future.

When your money isn’t constantly being devalued before your eyes, you start seeing the world differently. You begin saving for the future with confidence, knowing that no central authority can endlessly print away your hard-earned time and energy. Inflation doesn’t just erode purchasing power; it steals time. It destroys the hours, days, and years of effort represented by a lifetime of savings. When governments print money to prop up failing banks or fund inefficient ventures, the impact ripples through generations. Those at the bottom of the ladder are hit the hardest, their ability to save and plan for the future undermined by forces beyond their control. Decisions become focused on surviving today instead of thriving tomorrow, leaving little room to consider the long-term implications of our choices. This system creates a mindset where we are incentivized to spend now, instead of save for later—an unnatural phenomenon that most of us have accepted as normal.

For individuals who simply want to put away money for a rainy day, inflation is a relentless adversary. A dollar in 1900 has lost over 96% of its value. The countless hours of labor behind those savings have been stolen. Not only did the expansion of money destroy what they could buy, it stole our time and energy. Years of our lives—blood, sweat, and tears—washed away.

This isn’t just a historical problem—it’s a recurring one that occurs every decade or so and is accelerating. At an average inflation rate of 3%, the value of cash halves roughly every 23 years. This means that even modest inflation rates gradually diminish purchasing power over time, forcing individuals to chase speculative assets like stocks, real estate, and gold—not because they want to, but because they have no choice. Personal inflation rates differ depending on consumer habits, but a glance at rising prices reveals they often outpace the 2% annual rate reported by the government, which poses a significant problem for individua;s, as highlighted in the table below:

Corporations like McDonald’s understand this. Sitting on a prime corner lot in every major city is far smarter than stacking a pile of cash losing value. Even if the franchise is losing money, the building it operates in is guaranteed to “rise” in value over time. This mindset trickles down to everyday people. To protect themselves, they’re compelled to invest in assets—with real estate being the pinnacle savings instrument of our time. The financial system we’ve accepted as normal turns shelter into an investment vehicle and savings into a gamble.

But here’s the irony: real estate is a lousy store of value—which is what we are all truly seeking. Properties require constant maintenance. Without care, assets deteriorate. We’ve all seen abandoned theme parks and overgrown cities. We’ve all dealt with broken pipes and creaky floorboards. Why should saving our hard-earned wealth require us to become housing market experts, landlords, or property managers? Why should we pay financial advisors to manage stock portfolios full of companies whose values or practices we might not even believe in, just to beat inflation?

A flawed monetary system inflates bubbles in real estate and stocks, redirecting resources into speculative markets instead of productive investments. Imagine a world where people don’t have to read quarterly earnings reports after a long day of work to ensure their cash retains value. If the incentives driving these bubbles were removed, the financial landscape would dramatically shift. Inflation wouldn’t push people into markets like real estate or zombie companies; instead, they could focus on building or supporting businesses they genuinely care about. They could plan for the long term and make well-thought-out, rational decisions about their future.

Bitcoin takes this entire dynamic and flips it on its head. It isn’t a tool for speculation as often misunderstood. It is the best form of saving humanity has ever seen. Unlike fiat currencies, Bitcoin’s fixed supply ensures scarcity, making it a refuge from the erosion of wealth caused by inflation. As weak currencies flow into stronger ones (a concept known as Gresham’s Law), Bitcoin’s role as a store of value becomes clearer. It’s not that Bitcoin has “gone up 19,000%”—it’s that people are exchanging weaker money for stronger money.

The implications of a world on a Bitcoin standard extend far beyond monetary policy. It offers something unprecedented: a tool for transferring the value of labor and energy across time and space. Unlike fiat, Bitcoin allows time to be preserved across generations. It isn’t just a hedge against inflation—it reintroduces the idea of saving with confidence, of being able to store wealth in a form of money that cannot be manipulated or devalued.

By saving in Bitcoin, individuals are no longer tethered to the uncertainties of fiat systems. The Bitcoin time perspective is about aligning our actions today with the future we want to build tomorrow. It’s about prioritizing long-term impact over short-term gains. When you embrace Bitcoin, you embrace a mindset that values time, energy, and the well-being of future generations. It’s not just a currency; it’s a revolution in thinking that will change you forever. The past, present, and future converge in this new paradigm, offering hope in an otherwise uncertain world.

Bitcoin isn’t a bubble; it’s a beacon.

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