The Card Catalog — Curated Resources on Money, Bitcoin & Economics

The Bitcoin Standard

Saifedean Ammous

The canonical case for Bitcoin as sound money, framed through 5,000 years of monetary history. Start here.

The Fiat Standard

Saifedean Ammous

Companion to The Bitcoin Standard. Diagnoses what fiat money does to savings, time horizons, and society over decades.

The Price of Tomorrow

Jeff Booth

Why deflation from technology is inevitable, and why monetary inflation is fighting against the natural state of progress.

21 Lessons

Gigi

Short essays on what Bitcoin teaches about money, energy, and personal sovereignty. Easy entry point.

Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System

Satoshi Nakamoto

Satoshi’s original 9-page whitepaper. The shortest, most important read on this list.

Principles of Economics

Saifedean Ammous

Economics primer in the Austrian tradition. Fixes most of what mainstream econ classes get wrong about money and prices.

On the Origins of Money

Carl Menger

1892 essay establishing how money emerges from barter through market selection. Foundational.

Democracy: The God That Failed

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

Hoppe’s contrarian argument against modern democracy from a property-rights perspective. Provocative but rigorous.

Mises Institute

Ludwig von Mises Institute

Library of free Austrian economics texts, courses, and articles. Search any term and read the source.

Broken Money

Lyn Alden

Lyn Alden’s deep history of money. The most accessible book-length treatment of why the system is what it is today.

The Richest Man in Babylon

George S. Clason

Personal finance parables that hold up a century later. Read this to your kids.

When Money Dies

Adam Fergusson

What hyperinflation actually feels like. Weimar Germany as a cautionary case study.

The Case Against the Fed

Murray Rothbard

Rothbard’s clean takedown of central banking. Short read.

End the Fed

Ron Paul

Ron Paul’s political argument for monetary reform. Pairs with The Case Against the Fed.

The Mystery of Banking

Murray Rothbard

How fractional-reserve banking actually works, explained without jargon.

What Has Government Done to Our Money?

Murray Rothbard

Rothbard’s 100-page primer on monetary history. If you only read one Rothbard, read this.

The Alchemy of Finance

George Soros

Soros on reflexivity in markets. Different lens than Austrian school but worth the contrast.

The Creature from Jekyll Island

G. Edward Griffin

The narrative history of how the Federal Reserve was created. Reads like a thriller.

The Big Print

Lawrence Lepard

Lawrence Lepard’s case for hard money in the era of central bank intervention. Practical and current.

Mastering the Lightning Network

Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Olaoluwa Osuntokun & René Pickhardt

Technical reference for understanding Bitcoin’s payment layer. For when you want the engineering details.

Gradually, Then Suddenly

Parker Lewis

Parker Lewis’s essay series turned book. Tight, focused arguments for Bitcoin one at a time.

The Saif House

Saifedean Ammous · Bitcoin Publishing

Saifedean’s blog and essay archive. Where his books get drafted in real time.

Citadel Dispatch

Matt Odell

Marty Bent’s daily Bitcoin news and macro show. High signal, no fluff.

Onramp Bitcoin Media

Jackson Mikalic, Michael Tanguma & Brian Cubellis

Long-form interviews with Bitcoin practitioners and investors. Best for when you want depth.

Bitcoin Fundamentals (The Investor’s Podcast)

Preston Pysh

Preston Pysh’s Bitcoin show. Grounded, investor-focused conversations.

Rabbit Hole Recap

Marty Bent & Matt Odell

Marty Bent and Matt Odell weekly recap of Bitcoin news. Long-running and reliable.

Mark Moss

Mark Moss

Macro-focused commentary with a sound-money lens. Strong on the historical-cycle frame.

BTC Sessions

BTC Sessions

How-to videos for self-custody, hardware wallets, and Lightning. Best for hands-on learners.

TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast

Marty Bent

Marty Bent’s interview show. Wide-ranging guests across the Bitcoin ecosystem.

The Jack Mallers Show

Jack Mallers

Founder of Strike on Bitcoin payments, Lightning, and the global payment system.

Monetary Matters

Jack Farley

Jack Farley on macroeconomics, central banking, and dollar plumbing. Heavy but rewarding.

Unlimited Hangout

Whitney Webb

Whitney Webb’s investigative work on financial-system corruption. Adjacent reading, not Bitcoin-specific.

The Black Swan

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Taleb on rare events, fragility, and why most risk models miss what matters.

Check Your Financial Privilege

Alex Gladstein

Alex Gladstein on Bitcoin as a human-rights tool in authoritarian regimes.

Hidden Repression

Alex Gladstein

Gladstein’s deeper case for monetary freedom as a precondition for political freedom.

The Sovereign Individual

James Dale Davidson & Lord William Rees-Mogg

1997 prediction of how digital technology would reshape the nation-state. Aging well.

The Anatomy of the State

Murray Rothbard

Rothbard’s short, devastating essay on how states actually function. 80 pages.

Softwar

Jason P. Lowery

Jason Lowery’s thesis on Bitcoin as physical-power projection. Unconventional but worth the engagement.

The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047

Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver’s near-future novel of US dollar collapse. Fiction that makes the math feel personal.

Atlas Shrugged

Ayn Rand

Rand’s 1957 novel on economic systems and individual will. Long but the monetary scenes are sharp.

The “What is Money?” Show

Robert Breedlove

Robert Breedlove’s long-form podcast going deep on a single question, often for hours. Patient listening.

Ep. 1: The Power of the Market

Milton Friedman

How voluntary exchange creates wealth without central planning. Friedman’s foundational episode.

Ep. 2: The Tyranny of Control

Milton Friedman

Why government economic controls fail. Trade restrictions, price controls, and the costs of coercion.

Ep. 3: Anatomy of a Crisis

Milton Friedman

The Great Depression reexamined. Friedman argues it was Fed policy failure, not market failure.

Ep. 4: From Cradle to Grave

Milton Friedman

Welfare-state economics. The unintended consequences of intent-driven policy design.

Ep. 5: Created Equal

Milton Friedman

Equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome. Why the distinction matters for policy.

Ep. 6: What’s Wrong With Our Schools?

Milton Friedman

Why public-school monopolies fail and how voucher systems compare.

Ep. 7: Who Protects the Consumer?

Milton Friedman

Why regulators often serve incumbents. The case for market discipline over regulatory capture.

Ep. 8: Who Protects the Worker?

Milton Friedman

Labor unions, minimum wage, and what actually raises real wages. Friedman makes the unfashionable case.

Ep. 9: How to Cure Inflation

Milton Friedman

Friedman’s monetarist diagnosis. “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”

Ep. 10: How to Stay Free

Milton Friedman

The capstone. Why economic freedom and political freedom rise and fall together.