Bitcoin News Today: Bitcoin media calls Nixon's gold standard exit "most costly mistake we ever made"

The decision to abandon the gold standard is being labeled as the "most costly mistake we ever made," according to an educational video produced by Bitcoin media company TFCT [1]. The video, released to mark the anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s 1971 decision to end the dollar’s convertibility into gold, uses a poignant narrative to explore the long-term consequences of this shift in monetary policy.

The video features a grandfather offering a reflective lesson to his grandson, explaining how the move away from the gold standard marked the beginning of a decline in economic and societal stability. The grandfather emphasizes that the gold standard imposed discipline on governments by tying currency to a fixed asset—gold—thereby “keeping them honest” [1]. Once the gold standard was abandoned, the door was opened to the creation of fiat money, a system where currency is no longer backed by physical commodities and is instead based on trust in government.

This shift, the narrative suggests, led to an era of unchecked spending, rising inflation, and a growing reliance on debt. Politicians, no longer constrained by the limits of gold, could finance policies without the same level of fiscal responsibility. The grandfather recounts how “they printed paper backed by nothing, funded wars we couldn’t afford and shouldn’t have been involved in” [1]. While some countries, like France, attempted to retain their gold reserves, most of the world accepted the new system.

Over time, the video argues, the consequences became evident: prices rose, wages stagnated, and the traditional household model began to erode. The cultural and economic shifts were not immediate but rather “corrosive over time,” leading to a society increasingly defined by uncertainty and debt [1]. The grandfather laments how modern generations have come to accept this state of affairs as the norm, even though it represents a deviation from the stability and security that previous generations experienced.

The video also critiques the cultural and familial impacts of the post-gold-standard economy. It claims that as people’s incomes lost purchasing power, families began relying more on external institutions—such as schools and media—to raise children, leading to a breakdown in traditional family structures. The narrative further states that this shift fostered a culture of debt over savings, with rising rates of divorce, declining birth rates, and increased mental health issues [1].

Despite this bleak assessment, the video concludes on a hopeful note. It highlights Bitcoin as a potential solution to the problems created by fiat currency. Unlike traditional money, Bitcoin has a fixed supply of 21 million coins and is not subject to manipulation by central banks. The narrator suggests that Bitcoin can play the same stabilizing role in the digital age that gold once did in the physical world [1].

The video underscores a broader debate about the role of money in society and the long-term implications of central bank policies. By framing the abandonment of the gold standard as a foundational error, it invites a re-examination of current economic structures and the potential for new, decentralized alternatives like Bitcoin to offer a different path forward.

Source:

[1] Leaving the gold standard was the ‘most costly mistake we ever made’ – https://cryptoslate.com/leaving-the-gold-standard-was-the-most-costly-mistake-we-ever-made/