Beyond Fiat
A Beginner’s Guide to Crypto, Inflation and Protecting Your Money
Prices keep rising, savings keep shrinking, and everyone seems to have an opinion about Bitcoin. This is the calm, plain-English guide for people who want to understand what is happening to their money before they decide anything.
Twelve chapters, three parts.
- Part One · The Problem
- 01The Shrinking Dollar
- 02What Money Really Is
- 03How Fiat Works and Why It Inflates
- 04The Saver’s Dilemma
- Part Two · The Tool
- 05Bitcoin: Digital Scarcity
- 06Beyond Bitcoin
- 07Hype vs. Substance
- 08The Dark Side
- Part Three · The Plan
- 09Getting Started Safely
- 10Keys, Wallets and Security
- 11Taxes, Records and Rules
- 12Your Beyond Fiat Plan
Read the opening.
Maria has worked at the same hospital for eighteen years. She is good at her job, she has had raises almost every year, and she has never missed a rent payment. And yet, standing in the checkout line on a Saturday morning, she does the math she has been avoiding for months. The same cart of groceries that cost her about $120 a few years ago now costs closer to $170. She didn’t buy anything fancy. She just bought food.
On the drive home she wonders what she did wrong. The honest answer is: nothing. Maria didn’t lose money because she was careless. She lost money because the dollars she earns are quietly losing value, and nobody ever sat her down and explained why.
This book is that conversation.
M Z Babar
M Z Babar is the founder of Beyond Fiat, a plain-English school that helps everyday Americans understand money, inflation and crypto without hype. Babar earned an MBA from Old Dominion University in 2009 and has been driven ever since by one question: how can ordinary people learn to invest with confidence and grow what they earn?
Stories in the book are illustrative composites. The book is for education only and is not financial, investment, tax or legal advice.