The Greek philosopher Aristotle first brought the idea of sound money in the 4th century BC. He referred to sound money as:

1. Durable meaning it should last and not wear out.
2. Portable so it is practical to carry and use.
3. Divisible which is where we can make smaller payments and combine those into large payments without losing value.
4. Intrinsic value is where the money itself has value.
<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in">Gold</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">This yello metal holds durable, has intrinsic value but offers less divisibility and portability. Gold coins are expensive and are not practical for everyday use. Gold coins could be shaved to make small payments then melted and cast again but this is not easy. Large payments of gold are very heavy, their quality must be tested, must be transported securely, stored securely and therefore not very portable. Every year it is getting more expensive to mine gold as it is harder to extract and so this helps maintain the value. Gold is used in jewelry, electronics and other uses that helps maintain is value.</p>

<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in">Silver</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">Silver is similar to gold but it has less value per ounce. Silver coins can be used to make smaller payments than gold coins. For hundreds of years the standard size of silver coin was used in Europe and then brought to the USA. The original Thalr silver coins became the Daalder silver coins which were called dollars by English speakers. Then the USA adopted the European silver coin to be the US Dollar. Paper notes started to be printed that were the value of a silver coin and could be redeemed for silver coins. Then the USA switched to the gold standard. In 1971 the gold backing of the dollar was removed and the dollar became a fiat currency, soon after, so did all other central bank issued currencies.</p>

<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in">Dollar</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">The dollar is durable, portable and divisible but does not have intrinsic value. The dollar notes are backed by the government’s promise to pay “debt” which any holder of the dollar is essentially a limitless creditor, so long as they hold the dollar and thus the dollar is accepted worldwide as payment. The supply of the dollar and every other fiat currency is in control of the governments and the banks so it can be stable in the short term. In the long term, inflation adds up so now the dollar has about 5% of the buying power it had 100 years ago. The value of an asset is affected by its scarcity. While the notion that central banks continue to print billions of dollars every year which contributes to the erosion of its value, we must remember that traditional Banks contribute just as much to this influx of “money printing.” When someone gets a loan or credit card from a bank, the bank is not required to have those same assets on their books as collateral, therefore banking institutions are guiltier of “printing money” than central banks, the central banks just give them the power to do so. The stability in the value makes the dollar practical for payments but is a poor long term store of value because of inflation.</p>

<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in">Bitcoin</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">The government and bank actions during the great recession helped to inspire the creation of bitcoin. Bitcoin is durable, portable, and divisible but lacks intrinsic value. We can send millions of dollars’ worth of bitcoin in minutes anywhere in the world for low fees, for the time being, as this will change over time with mining rewards declining and miners’ need to make money, but regardless, bitcoin is very portable, durable and better money than fiat. Since it has no intrinsic value, we can only value it by the market demand and the supply, and even this can be skewed in any which direction at any given time given the lack of transparency from existing exchanges. The amount of bitcoin that can be created is controlled by math and declines over time. This has led to a dramatic increase in the value of Bitcoin over the past 10 years while the short term price remains very volatile. This makes Bitcoin a great store of value but is less practical for everyday payments. Bitcoin is so much faster than doing an international bank wire transfer but transactions do still take 10 to 20 minutes to complete. This makes it less useful for in person payments. The bitcoin blockchain is extremely secure but it is limited to about 7 transactions per second. This is not enough capacity to handle the volume of transactions necessary for it to be a means of exchange, which was Satoshi’s vision!</p>

<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ie if ig ih ii ij ik il im in">Thalr</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">There are thousands of “cryptocurrencies” that have been created since Bitcoin. Each of these has a different purpose or strategy for solving a problem with blockchain technology. We decided to create Thalr as an alternative solution to the sound money problem. Thalr is a cryptocurrency so it is durable, portable, and divisible, but the key advantage is that it has intrinsic value by. Thalr is supported by a continuing accumulation of silver bullion reserves. Each Thalr can be redeemed for silver in the same way the original US dollar note was. The fact that silver has long been a precious metal commodity and regardless of time in history, has always had “value” and demand. This gives each Thalr holder the ability to have access to a secure, fast and sound form of money, regardless of where in the world you are.</p>

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<h1 class="ib ic eq bh bg fj id ji if jj ih jk ij jl il jm in">Scalability</h1>
<p class="hn ho eq bh hp b hq io hs ip hu iq hw ir hy is ia">Thalr has solved the scaling issues of blockchain and in particular cryptocurrencies by having the ability to complete tens of thousands of transactions with finality in under 1 second while also staying truly decentralized, which is the “essence” of cryptocurrencies. The Thalr wallet will allow users to make a payment in a price of local fiat equivalent but the payment will be made in Thalrs, same as existing wallet infrastructures. Thalr will also incorporate itself within existing wallet and POS (point of sale) systems that will allow for both merchants and consumers to benefit. The combination of sound money (crypto + silver bullion) and scalability makes Thalr practical for in person purchases, international payments and a store of value.</p>

Sound Money

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