The Sound Money Project was founded in January 2009 to conduct research and promote awareness about monetary stability and financial privacy. The project is comprised of leading academics and practitioners in money, banking, and macroeconomics. It offers regular commentary and in-depth analysis on monetary policy, alternative monetary systems, financial markets regulation, cryptocurrencies, and the history of monetary and macroeconomic thought. For the latest on sound money issues, subscribe to our working paper series and follow along on Twitter or Facebook.
Advisory Board: Steve H. Hanke, Jerry L. Jordan, Lawrence H. White
Director: William J. Luther
Senior Fellows: Nicolás Cachanosky, Gerald P. Dwyer, Joshua R. Hendrickson, Thomas L. Hogan, Gerald P. O’Driscoll, Jr., Alexander W. Salter
Fellows: James L. Caton, J.P. Koning
Trouble Transacting with Bitcoin
“Problems with bitcoin’s design––including its suboptimal supply constraint and limited transactions capacity––cast doubt on the claim that bitcoin is superior to the monies widely used at present.” ~ William J. Luther
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How the Fed Can Improve Financial Stability and Reduce Inequality
“There is clear evidence that bank deregulation can improve financial stability while also shrinking inequality. By lowering the costs of doing business, strong but simple regulations improve job opportunities for low-skilled and minority workers.” ~ Thomas L. Hogan & Amelia Janaskie
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What’s Wrong With Bitcoin’s Supply Mechanism?
“Bitcoin’s supply mechanism fails to provide a long-run nominal anchor or promote monetary stability. A better money would employ a supply mechanism that offsets changes in the demand to hold it.” ~ William J. Luther
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Was the OnlyFans Ban a Symptom of Creeping Financial Censorship?
“It is unfortunate that OnlyFans content creators were nearly deplatformed. However, it seems to be a local incident, and not indicative of a global decline in accessibility to payments.” ~ J.P. Koning
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Government Opposition to Bitcoin
“Government obstacles to widespread adoption take many forms, from mere transaction policy to outright bans on alternatives while providing close substitutes in the form of central bank digital currencies.” ~ William J. Luther
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Bitcoin and the Network Effects Problem
“There are steps entrepreneurs can take to help reduce the network effects problem. It is, nonetheless, an obstacle bitcoin must overcome to achieve widespread adoption.” ~ William J. Luther
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Permanent or Transitory Inflation: An Analytical Framework
“Inflation is not a high price level; it is a persistent increase in the price level. Whether inflation persists depends on what Fed officials do next.” ~ Nicolás Cachanosky
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How Does the Federal Reserve Evaluate Policy?
“If inflation does not relent in approaching months, this call for a modest tightening will likely develop support from other ranking members of the Fed. I’m willing to bet that support for tightening will be strongly correlated with the value of the loss function presented here.” ~ James L. Caton
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The Great Inflation Debate Is Missing Why Inflation Matters
“The public debate over inflation is a great opportunity to focus on what really matters: subjecting monetary policymakers to the rule of law. Unfortunately, we’re currently squandering that opportunity to repeat pop-macroeconomic fallacies.” ~ Alexander W. Salter
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Decentralized Stablecoins: The Real Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash Systems
“Bitcoin still has a role to play as a globally popular speculative token. It’s time for the decentralized stablecoins to take their place as the real peer-to-peer electronic cash systems.” ~ J.P. Koning
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The End of Bretton Woods, Jacques Rueff, and the “Monetary Sin of the West”
“As its contemporary critics understood, Bretton Woods was doomed to fail if it could not be fundamentally reformed. One of its chief contemporary critics was the French economist, Jacques Rueff.” ~ Lawrence H. White
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How High Will Inflation Be in 2021?
“Inflation will be noticeably higher in 2021 than it has been in some time. An important question is whether it will be followed by the widely predicted lower inflation or by higher inflation in subsequent years.” ~ Gerald P. Dwyer
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