The Austrian theory of money posits that money emerges in a market as the most marketable commodity and most salable asset, the one asset whose holders can sell with the most ease, in favorable conditions.7 An asset that holds its value is preferable to an asset that loses value, and savers who want to choose a medium of exchange will gravitate toward assets that hold value over time as monetary assets. Network effects mean that eventually only one, or a few, assets can emerge as media of exchange. For Mises, the absence of control by government is a necessary condition for the soundness of
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