This week, CNBC host Jim Cramer announced that he had sold half of his bitcoin to pay off a mortgage. "It was like phony money paying for real money,” he said. “I think I won." While Cramer, the well-known host of “Mad Money,” has quite an impressive background having graduated from Harvard University and later running his own hedge fund, his choice to sell bitcoin to pay down a mortgage is a classic example of a misunderstanding of monetary economics, and the dynamics of currency competition. This piece isn’t meant to focus solely on Cramer, but rather to provide analysis as to why this is an example of a ... (full story)