{"id":43393,"date":"2025-08-21T14:01:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=43393"},"modified":"2025-08-21T14:01:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T14:01:41","slug":"bitcoin-author-saifedean-exposes-mileis-economic-miracle-as-fiat-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=43393","title":{"rendered":"Bitcoin Author Saifedean Exposes Milei\u2019s \u2018Economic Miracle\u2019 As Fiat Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Saifedean Ammous\u2014best known in the Bitcoin community as the author of The Bitcoin Standard\u2014has attacked Argentine President Javier Milei\u2019s stabilization program as a bond-fueled \u201cfiat fraud,\u201d arguing that the policy mix flatters official statistics while deepening the country\u2019s dependence on multilateral lenders and peso-denominated carry trades.<\/p>\n

In a lengthy X post on August 20, Ammous framed last week\u2019s bond rollover as a reality check: \u201cArgentina\u2019s Javier Milei regime<\/a> tried to roll over bonds by offering investors an insane 69% interest rate, and only succeeded in rolling over 61% of them. Even a 69% annual interest rate isn\u2019t enough to tempt investors to risk lending to the Milei ponzi.\u201d He punctuated the thread with a line he says Milei himself used after a memecoin debacle: \u201cNo Crying in the Casino!\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitcoin Vs. Fiat: Milei Picks His Side<\/h2>\n

Ammous\u2019 critique is explicitly Bitcoin-versus-fiat. He claims the administration \u201creneged on [its] campaign promise to shut down the central bank,\u201d chose to expand money-supply measures instead of \u201cstop[ping] creating money,\u201d and raised taxes while seeking an IMF rescue<\/a>\u2014moves he calls \u201cthe same old fiat banksterism.\u201d The Bitcoin author\u2019s monetary prescription is unambiguous: \u201cAfter almost two years in office, it would have been absolutely trivial for Milei to bring price inflation down to close to zero with the one simple trick\u2026 stop creating money.\u201d In Ammous\u2019 telling, anything short of extinguishing discretionary money creation cannot be sold to Bitcoiners as sound policy.<\/p>\n

On debt and multilateral financing, Ammous alleges that the latest arrangements amount to record-breaking exposure to official creditors and a mortgaging of future fiscal space. \u201cWith this new $20b in IMF loans, Argentina now has the highest outstanding debt to the IMF in IMF history\u2026 borrowing is now at 1,352% of its IMF quota,\u201d he writes, adding that the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank \u201calso\u201d committed roughly $12 billion and $10 billion, respectively, bringing \u201ca total of $42 billion borrowed from international institutions.\u201d He characterizes the show of support, celebrated by local officials, as a pyrrhic victory for fiat: \u201cPoint 5 is not a win, it is an L.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bitcoin-versus-fiat framing extends to prices, exchange rates, and data quality. Ammous argues that government statistics understate the erosion of purchasing power, but says even the official numbers are damning. \u201cAfter year-on-year price inflation rates rose to almost 300% in the first few months of his presidency, it has declined to the 30\u201340% range in recent months, and the cumulative price inflation since Milei has taken office is 155%,\u201d he writes. He underscores pressure on the peso by citing both the black-market and official rates: \u201cThe black market peso exchange rate has dropped 30% against the dollar in just 21 months\u2026 The official rate\u2026 has dropped by around 70%, from 400 pesos per dollar to 1,300 pesos per dollar. Just in the last month of July, both rates dropped around 13%.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bitcoin Doesn\u2019t Default\u2014Fiat Always Does<\/h2>\n

Ammous, speaking from a hard-money and Bitcoin perspective, insists that free markets cannot coexist with monetary discretion: \u201cAll talk of a free market is empty rhetoric as long as the government manipulates the money.\u201d He links this to the high-yield peso bond complex\u2014what he dubs a \u201cshitcoin casino\u201d\u2014arguing that \u201cthe central bank is imposing an interest rate of 65%, making speculation on the government\u2019s bonds the only possibly profitable industry.\u201d In Bitcoin circles, that argument resonates with a longstanding critique: fiat incentives manufacture yield-chasing behavior that collapses when confidence wobbles, while Bitcoin\u2019s fixed issuance schedule avoids that cycle by design.<\/p>\n

His post also alleges problematic asset management and bank risk. \u201cMilei shipped off the little that remained of Argentina\u2019s once significant gold reserves to London in search for a quick yield buck,\u201d Ammous claims, before warning that new regulations could again funnel household savings into sovereign risk: \u201cMilei and Caputo are currently trying to force the banks to buy more government bonds, yet again using the savings of Argentinians to prop up the government\u2019s unsustainable debt\u2026 bringing back painful memories of the Corral\u00f3n of 2001.\u201d The Bitcoin author\u2019s broader contention is that fiat systems externalize crisis risk onto depositors and domestic savers, while Bitcoin self-custody avoids those channels.<\/p>\n

The administration\u2019s supporters\u2014some of them Bitcoiners\u2014push back. Fernando Nikoli\u0107, founder of Perception responded point-by-point that \u201cinflation has dramatically declined,\u201d \u201cGDP growth is projected at 5.5%,\u201d \u201ccurrency controls were successfully eliminated without crisis,\u201d and \u201cthe budget achieved [a] historic surplus.\u201d He framed the outcome as proof that markets and institutions \u201crewarded Milei\u2019s more gradual approach,\u201d even if it falls short of an immediate central-bank shutdown favored by Austrian economists and many Bitcoin advocates. Ammous dismissed the rebuttal: \u201cYou either didn\u2019t read what I wrote or you\u2019re incapable of comprehending what you read\u2026 Point 5 is not a win, it is an L. Muted for wasting my time with stupidity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond the clash of tone, the substantive disagreement is philosophical and monetary. Ammous\u2019 benchmark is Bitcoin-standard discipline: close the central bank<\/a>, anchor money supply, let relative prices reset, and rebuild on hard money\u2014painful initially, in his view, but durable.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s approach is classic fiat stabilization: disinflate with tight policy, widen financing buffers with IMF\/WB\/IDB lines, normalize the FX regime, and nurse domestic markets back to depth\u2014politically survivable if growth returns, but reliant on confidence, rollover capacity, and high local-currency rates that Bitcoiners see as the hallmark of fiat fragility.<\/p>\n

For now, both narratives point to the same hinge variables: peso rollover capacity at \u201cinsane\u201d yields, the pace of disinflation, the behavior of parallel exchange rates, and whether multilateral support remains politically and financially sustainable. If those levers tighten simultaneously, Bitcoin\u2019s critique will look prescient; if they hold, the case for a fiat stabilization hardens. In Ammous\u2019 words, however, Bitcoin is the only durable exit: \u201cIt would have been absolutely trivial\u2026 stop creating money.\u201d<\/p>\n

At press time, Bitcoin traded at $113,612.<\/p>\n

\"Bitcoin<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saifedean Ammous\u2014best known in the Bitcoin community as the author of The Bitcoin Standard\u2014has attacked Argentine President Javier Milei\u2019s stabilization program as a bond-fueled \u201cfiat fraud,\u201d arguing that the policy mix flatters official statistics while deepening the country\u2019s dependence on multilateral lenders and peso-denominated carry trades. In a lengthy X post on August 20, Ammous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-43393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}