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Jeff Booth: Jeff Booth headshot, 2019

Jeff Booth

Author of The Price of Tomorrow; tech entrepreneur and bitcoin investor

Known for
The Price of Tomorrow (2020)[1]
Role
Founding partner, Ego Death Capital[4]
Co-founded
BuildDirect, 1999 (left 2017)[1]
Notable date
Jan 14, 2020: book published[1]

Photo: Jeff Booth headshot, 2019 by Kkernahan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped.

“Exponentially advancing technological gains bring efficiency. That efficiency is deflationary.”
Jeff Booth, Dec 3, 2020 · Essay “The Greatest Game” on jeffbooth.ca (original)

Every quote is checked word for word against the original post or video, linked above.

Bio

Jeff Booth is a Vancouver technology entrepreneur and author. He co-founded BuildDirect, an online marketplace for heavyweight home improvement products, with Rob Banks in 1999, and left the company in 2017. He was named BC Tech's Person of the Year in 2015, and Goldman Sachs named him one of its 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs in 2016.[1][2]

On Jan 14, 2020 he published The Price of Tomorrow: Why Deflation Is the Key to an Abundant Future. In Techcouver's words, its thesis rests on “the deflationary impact of technological advances coupled with increasingly easy credit.” It is on our books page.[1][5]

He is a founding partner of Ego Death Capital, which his site describes as a bitcoin-only venture fund, and his site lists board seats at bitcoin miner Core Scientific and at Fedi and Breez, which build bitcoin and Lightning apps. In July 2026 he wrote that Ego Death Capital had started Orange Juice, which buys cash-flowing small businesses and converts their earnings into bitcoin.[2][4]

Key ideas

His main arguments, each with a word-for-word quote linked to where he wrote or said it. These are his views; see below for why others disagree.

  1. Technology is deflationary

    “The reason prices are not falling is that advancing technological progress is incompatible with the existing monetary system which requires inflation to remain viable.”

    Jeff Booth, “The Greatest Game”, Dec 3, 2020[3]

    His starting point: technology keeps delivering more for less, so prices should be falling. His example is the phone, which now also does the work of a camera, a map and a music player for a fraction of the old cost, which he calls “by definition deflationary.”

  2. Credit expansion

    “Worse, because the existing system is built on credit, it can't be repaired from the inside.”

    Jeff Booth, “The case for sound money”, Jul 14, 2026[4][3]

    In his view, a system built on debt can't allow falling prices, so it keeps adding credit and pushing inflation. He wrote in 2020 that without inflation, “deflation takes hold and wipes out credit and because the system is based on credit, wealth is destroyed.”

  3. Why he thinks bitcoin fixes it

    “As long as Bitcoin stayed decentralized and secure, it would impose the first truly global free market. Measured in Bitcoin, prices would fall over time because the denominator couldn't be adjusted.”

    Jeff Booth, “The case for sound money”, Jul 14, 2026[4][3]

    Bitcoin's supply is capped at just under 21 million, so no one can print more to offset falling prices. In his words: “Same goods and services, two opposite trajectories, and the difference is the money itself.”

Videos

Interviews featuring Jeff Booth, from the original channels. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.

Why opinions on Booth's ideas differ

Booth's thesis runs against the mainstream view that a little inflation is healthy and falling prices are risky. Here are the main arguments on each side, in their own sources' words, each with its date. We don't take a side.

What supporters point to

  • Not all deflation is harmful. A March 2015 BIS study covering 140 years and up to 38 economies found only a weak link between falling prices of goods and services and output growth, driven largely by the Great Depression. It notes that supply-driven deflations, such as those from productivity gains, “depress prices while raising incomes and output.”[9]
  • The same study found no evidence that high debt had so far made goods-and-services deflations costlier. The most damaging mix it found was falling property prices combined with high private debt.[9]
  • Booth accepts that debt makes falling prices painful. His point is that this is the trap: in a system based on credit, deflation threatens debts, so policy has to keep creating inflation (“The Greatest Game,” Dec 3, 2020).[3]

What mainstream economists point to

  • Debt deflation. In a Nov 21, 2002 speech, then-Fed governor Ben Bernanke warned that falling prices raise the real burden of existing debts, citing Japan's problem of “debt-deflation” and the U.S. in 1930–33, when prices fell about 10 percent a year.[6]
  • The zero bound. The same speech argued that deflation can push interest rates to zero and limit conventional policy, which is why central banks with explicit targets set inflation above zero, “generally between 1 and 3 percent per year.”[6]
  • Stable, low inflation helps planning. The Fed says 2 percent inflation over the longer run is most consistent with its mandate, and that when people can expect inflation to stay low and stable, “they are able to make sound decisions regarding saving, borrowing, and investment” (checked Oct 18, 2026).[7]
  • Hoarding. On Sep 7, 2011, Paul Krugman argued that falling prices measured in bitcoin had created “an incentive to hoard the virtual currency rather than spending it,” and that the experiment showed how vulnerable a gold-standard-like money would be to “money-hoarding, deflation, and depression.”[8]

Checked Oct 18, 2026. Dates are those of each speech, paper or post. The economists' views are their own, Booth's are his, and nothing here is financial advice.

Video library

24 videos, 2020–2026. His interviews, debates and keynotes on technology, deflation and bitcoin, each verified and summarized.

Open the full Jeff Booth video library →

Timeline

  1. 1999

    Co-founds BuildDirect with Rob Banks[1]

  2. 2015

    Named BC Tech's Person of the Year[1]

  3. 2017

    Leaves BuildDirect[1]

  4. Jan 14, 2020

    Publishes The Price of Tomorrow[1]

  5. Dec 3, 2020

    Publishes the essay “The Greatest Game”[3]

  6. Jul 14, 2026

    Writes that Ego Death Capital has started Orange Juice[4]

Connections

No sourced connection to the other people on this site yet. We only draw links we can document.

Elsewhere on CHS

Sources

Checked Oct 18, 2026 · All people