Hardest Money Wins

Chapter 1: Hardest Money Wins

The arena is set, anticipation reverberating through the crowd like thunder. The bell rings, and the rumble erupts into a flurry of grapples, strikes, and desperate maneuvers. It's a no-holds-barred—fight to the death. From the stands, every bone-crunching blow is felt, our lives entangled with the outcome. Back the victor, and safeguard your wealth, time, and existence. Back wrongly, and lose it all. Brace yourself for this historic battle, a fight faced by all who came before, a fight with only one rule: hardest money wins.

But before taking a ringside seat for this monetary clash, the essential first step is to understand there is indeed a battle waging. A nagging question that surrounds what we take for granted. By opening these pages, you've dived headfirst into a question that's been stirring in our minds all along...

Since the dawn of human civilization, every time we've set down our tools after a long day of arduous work, we've faced a burning issue: preserving the rewards of our labor. Our time and energy is what we gave up to perform this work, and thus we sought something to preserve the value we'd created.

In ancient times, the very fruits of our labor were our money. If we grew bananas, the storage of our work and effort existed within the bananas themselves. The time we spent planting, watering, and harvesting was all stored within. However, this presented a challenge—bananas, like all perishable crops, have a fleeting lifespan. If we wished to save the value of our labor for future purchases, bananas wouldn't suffice. By the time we sought to exchange them for other goods, they had spoiled and become worthless. This created a pressing need for a more durable medium of exchange, one that could withstand the test of time.

We needed "harder" money—something to preserve the fruits of our labor. It had to resist rust, rot, and rapid depreciation. Essentially, we sought a vessel to bottle our work, time, and energy, securely storing it until we chose to spend it.

And thus, the battle had begun, pitting each money against one another in our unending quest to find the most enduring, reliable, best storage medium—"the hardest money."

Imagine for a moment, every dollar, every coin, and every piece of currency as a vessel containing the sweat, labor, and ingenuity of countless individuals. Hard money is not just a medium of exchange or a store of value—it is the crystallization of our endeavors and the finite hours we pour into our work.

Hard money stands as a testament to the sacrifices made, the dreams pursued, and the relentless drive to transform fleeting moments into lasting worth. The battle for hard money is simply our battle to preserve.

As we'll discover within this book, the fundamental search for the 'hardest money' remains as relevant today as it was during the days of barter in ancient civilizations. One might assume that with money being as old as civilization itself, there's nothing left to learn, that the battles are all but over. That preserving human labor has been solved. However, time and time again, this assumption has proven to be wrong.

Our built-in human quirks have a funny way of tripping us up when it comes to understanding our greatest technology: money. We work for it, we use it, we fantasize about it, yet rarely do we delve into its deep history or examine the specific properties of money itself.

It's these properties, regardless of what is promised or believed, that determine how successful a money will be. And why should we care? Because thousands upon thousands of now defunct monies have existed in the past, far more than would ever fit in this book—and that's the point. Despite what we believe to be true, eventually the properties of a money catch up and determine its success or failure.

It's not guesswork, nor is it complex; it is simply a basic law of the universe. One that, by learning from the past, we can understand and anticipate. The Roman Denarius, John Law's Mississippi Company currency, even cowrie shells—all failed due to fundamental flaws in their monetary properties.

As a form of money begins to falter in retaining the very value it's meant to store, it opens the door for others with superior qualities to take its place.

Slowly but surely, as the more resilient form of storing value gains prominence, it becomes increasingly vital to position oneself in the new 'harder' money. Those paying attention, get themselves secured the earliest, and reap the rewards. Eventually, like a force of gravity, all wealth is drawn towards the best storage — the hardest form of money.

The weaker forms lose their purchasing power, as people spend their softer money, buying into the better form, increasing its gravitational pull. A self-fulfilling prophecy that leaves the hardest money reigning supreme, standing tall—while successfully throwing all others from the ring.

This can be a brutal lesson for all those not paying attention. Wealth built up over generations can be washed away in the streets, as the weaker money meets its demise.

Our search for the hardest money has been a relentless hunt that has defined the human experience; shaping civilizations, toppling kingdoms, and affecting us all. For those who master the ability to pick the winners, the rewards are power, security, and longevity beyond imagination.

But to understand which money will be left standing in the all-out rumble, we must first delve into history and arm ourselves with knowledge. We'll learn what money existed in the past, what properties helped them endure, and what weaknesses brought them to their knees. Only then can we step into the arena that will define our lives, the fight with only one single rule: Hardest Money Wins.