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Iceland also has sovereignty and very favorable geography. (Being surrounded by oceans makes it easy to remain fairly neutral.) If I were the government of Icel

Iceland also has sovereignty and very favorable geography. (Being surrounded by oceans makes it easy to remain fairly neutral.) If I were the government of Iceland, I would issue a cryptocurrency.

criddell 8y ago
If you are a government, why would you issue a cryptocurrency? Why not issue a more more traditional digital currency with a central ledger?
- stcredzero 8y ago
  A cryptocurrency would be less under the control of the government, which could well be a feature.
  - allannienhuis 8y ago
    not for the government...
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      But perhaps for other governments and other parties. The customers.
- stale2002 8y ago
  A government would be responding to customer demand. Sure, they could create a centralized digital currency. But the market might not want to use that, so what's even the point of spending all this effort making it in the first place. Whereas a decentralized currency has features that sounds me customers want.
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    Currently, demand for cryptocurrencies seems indistinguishable from zero. At the same time, demand for government issued centralized money is quite large.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      History has seen rapid changes in the demand for government issued money.
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        The word "rapid" on that phrase was an entirely different meaning from when it's used to describe the rate of change of cryptocoins demand. A large market is a more stable market. Crypto may get large at some point (I don't see why they would, but I don't see everything), but today they are nothing. Thus, preaching that people massively want them is nonsense.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
Iceland is not neutral in any geopolitical sense of the word. Iceland is fully within the US/NATO orbit.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  It makes sense for Iceland to be in the US/NATO orbit. If there were a European/Russian conflict, they'd be a bit too strategically valuable for Russia. Given that's the only major geopolitical impetus, they're still in a good position to do financial stuff with a large part of the developed world.
npongratz 8y ago
Not government-issued, and there's certainly many reasons for failing (or at least, for its chronic floundering), but the Auroracoin airdrop was a thing for Iceland and has not performed very well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroracoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroracoin https://coinlib.io/coin/AUR/Aurora+Coin https://coinlib.io/coin/AUR/Aurora+Coin
- yownie 8y ago
  It was rolled out very poorly here, no vendor integration and the claiming mechanism was webscraping the local yellow pages site here and eventually was blocked.

Iceland also has sovereignty and very favorable geography. (Being surrounded by oceans makes it easy to remain fairly neutral.) If I were the government of Iceland, I would issue a cryptocurrency.

criddell 8y ago

If you are a government, why would you issue a cryptocurrency? Why not issue a more more traditional digital currency with a central ledger?

stcredzero 8y ago
A cryptocurrency would be less under the control of the government, which could well be a feature.
- allannienhuis 8y ago
  not for the government...
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    But perhaps for other governments and other parties. The customers.
stale2002 8y ago
A government would be responding to customer demand. Sure, they could create a centralized digital currency. But the market might not want to use that, so what's even the point of spending all this effort making it in the first place. Whereas a decentralized currency has features that sounds me customers want.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  Currently, demand for cryptocurrencies seems indistinguishable from zero. At the same time, demand for government issued centralized money is quite large.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    History has seen rapid changes in the demand for government issued money.
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      The word "rapid" on that phrase was an entirely different meaning from when it's used to describe the rate of change of cryptocoins demand. A large market is a more stable market. Crypto may get large at some point (I don't see why they would, but I don't see everything), but today they are nothing. Thus, preaching that people massively want them is nonsense.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

Iceland is not neutral in any geopolitical sense of the word. Iceland is fully within the US/NATO orbit.

stcredzero 8y ago
It makes sense for Iceland to be in the US/NATO orbit. If there were a European/Russian conflict, they'd be a bit too strategically valuable for Russia. Given that's the only major geopolitical impetus, they're still in a good position to do financial stuff with a large part of the developed world.

npongratz 8y ago

Not government-issued, and there's certainly many reasons for failing (or at least, for its chronic floundering), but the Auroracoin airdrop was a thing for Iceland and has not performed very well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroracoin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auroracoin https://coinlib.io/coin/AUR/Aurora+Coin https://coinlib.io/coin/AUR/Aurora+Coin

yownie 8y ago
It was rolled out very poorly here, no vendor integration and the claiming mechanism was webscraping the local yellow pages site here and eventually was blocked.