Jim Rickards , the New York Times best-selling author of Currency Wars and The Death of Money , recently discussed his latest book, The New Case for Gold , during a reinvent.money hangout. Although the majority of the conversation focused on Rickards’ new book, the economic commentator also shared some thoughts on Bitcoin.
Anything Can Be Money
In recent interviews , Rickards has mentioned Bitcoin as a legitimate form of money and said on the reinvent.money hangout that, in fact, anything can be money.
He stated: “At various times in history, feathers have been money, shells have been money, dollars and euros are money, Bitcoin is money, gold is money, and silver is money. There are many different kinds of money.” Rickards also took issue with the idea that some forms of money, such as Bitcoin or U.S. dollars, are not backed by anything.
“But that’s not true,” he said. “They are backed by one thing, which is confidence. If you and I have confidence that something is money and we agree that it’s money, then it can be money.”
Although Rickards believes anything can be money, he went on to describe how some forms of money are better than others (in the eyes of the market.)
The Viability of a Money is Determined by the Market
Rickards explained that the viability of any form of money is determined by the people who use it (or don’t use it). He stated, “The question is: Will anyone have confidence in it? Same thing with Bitcoin; same thing with gold.”Rickards then added, “I can call something money, but if nobody else in the world wants it, then it’s not very useful as money.”As Rickards explained, people can decide to use anything as money. Having said that, there are still properties of some assets that […]
