“Gold standard” is a common phrase meaning that something is good and trustworthy — but the actual gold standard, which started in the 1790s, didn’t work well at all. Gold standard economies went through manic boom-and-bust cycles and financial crises. Countries came out of the Great Depression of the 1930s as they moved off a rigid gold standard, and the last traces of the gold standard were abandoned in 1971. Real economies need credit and monetary policy for any sort of stability. Bitcoiners think that this is incorrect and immoral, and that bad ideas that didn’t work before will surely work again if they’re programmed well enough.”