Steve Hanke is a sour, anti-Bitcoin crusader who moonlights as an excellent monetary scholar. His name is all over research on hyperinflation etc.
In his new book with Matt Sekerke he goes haywire into MMT-adjacent thinking. And he dismisses Bitcoin in a single sentence... so I dismissed the rest of his book in the shortest, swiftest, most badass book review I ever published.
From Bitcoin Magazine Print:
Suppose two well-regarded, established economists at Johns Hopkins University write a long, dense, detailed book on how to make money work better. In the year 2025, no less, the 17th year of our lord Bitcoin’s continued, flourishing existence, they flippantly dismiss this monetary newcomer in a single sentence. In that case, they deserve to have their own book similarly relegated to the dustbins… so I stopped reading Sekerke and Hanke’s book after 33 pages, concluding ceremonially that this title wasn’t worth my time — or indeed the attention of anybody concerned with building a monetary future to fix the monetary ills of our past and present.
Bitcoin is for anyone, but certainly not everyone. Some people are just too salty, too infected by Bitcoin derangement syndrome (BDS), too enamored by their own egos, or too stuck in the rapidly devolving status quo. Science progresses one funeral at a time.
BDS, a severe illness at the end of the fiat age, has taken better victims than Messrs Sekerke and Hanke, but it’s still tragic to see. A huge disappointment and missed opportunity for otherwise quite sharp minds to engage with the most interesting monetary phenomenon in our lifetimes.