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I'm not sure why it wasn't the first thing that was said, but let me say it. It's to give freedom. Freedom to make and distribute your own currency without bor

I'm not sure why it wasn't the first thing that was said, but let me say it. It's to give freedom. Freedom to make and distribute your own currency without borders, rules or monopoly. An outcome of this would be elimination of an artificial recession. There's a reason why Bitcoin paper was published in 2008. Another outcome would be reduction in the authority of banks and governments. There's a reason why all the banking institutions and governments are quick to call it evil. Reason is that control of money grants banks and governments great control over citizenry. There's no denying that it's far from perfect and has to be updated to solve all the bugs, many resembling to fiats.

not_kurt_godel 8y ago
An outcome of cryptocurrency would not be elimination of artificial recession as evidenced by the repeated losses of 75% of value practically overnight. Seriously, do you even understand the words you are saying or are you just blindly parrotting something you read on the Internet?
- ghostinmachine 8y ago
  I do understand. It's not an outcome of specifically cryptocurrency but distributed nature of it. The losses that we see are because of the uncertainty surrounding it. It's a form of currency and should be used as one. In the current market it's being used as more like trading stocks than currency. Currently it's not completely distributed, from the people hoarding it to the ICOs to the whales and to centralized exchanges, it all needs to be taken into account, those would be bugs. I would like the idea of limiting amount of money one can hold and spend in a limited period to avoid such disasters. This would limit the freedom too. But we will have to talk about how much freedom does one person/entity need, (yours ends where mine begins). It's not perfect yet, but it's a nice idea. If perfected it would a lot harder to artificially manipulate than the current system. At the very least, a lot many people would be responsible for any disaster instead of a few.
  - adwn 8y ago
    > I would like the idea of limiting amount of money one can hold and spend in a limited period to avoid such disasters. This would limit the freedom too. But we will have to talk about how much freedom does one person/entity need, (yours ends where mine begins). And yet, two posts up you complained about control of people's freedom: >>> Reason is that control of money grants banks and governments great control over citizenry. Do you no see the irony in that contradiction? > If perfected [...] Hah! What a huge "if" you're smuggling into your hypothesis right there.
    - ghostinmachine 8y ago
      > And yet, two posts up you complained about control of people's freedom I'm a supporter of reasonable freedoms not unlimited freedoms. I would like checks and balances on power and it's accumulation whether it's a person or group of persons. Just like voting rights, we at least try to achieve equal voting share for each person. Money is power it needs reasonable checks and balances so that wishes of few do not affect many. No one needs $100 million to survive or live a reasonably good life. If you need more for an endeavor you're free to appeal to others to invest into your effort. Point is, large changes needs to be made by proportionate amount of wills. > Do you no see the irony in that contradiction? There's no contradiction. It's just a suggestion to avoid a few of such problems, but if you have a better suggestions, I welcome it. >Hah! What a huge "if" Yes that's a big 'if', just like for any other idea. Only fools are certain of things, those without power have only hope.
      - adwn 8y ago
        Cryptocurrencies cannot prevent accumulation of extreme wealth in the hands of a few. The reason is simple, yet important: Money is not wealth. Money represents wealth. If you restrict the amount of money per person, wealth will be represented by a different metric – camels, for example. > Yes that's a big 'if', just like for any other idea. No. Any idea that requires such an "if" (i.e., the implementation has to be perfect for the idea to succeed) is doomed to fail.
atq2119 8y ago
About those "artificial recessions": The historical experience with a gold standard without central banking is the closest we have to what an economy built on only Bitcoin would look like. If you look at the 19th century, it had far worse cycles of strong recessions than we've ever seen in the 20th or 21st century since central banking was established, and then later we got rid of the gold standard. So... were those frequent 19th century recessions somehow preferable because they were "natural"?
- Chris2048 8y ago
  Gold standard might be the "closest" example, but is it a reasonable one? cyber-currency differs in significant ways - You don't need to bite a bitcoin. Also, without knowing why the difference (wrt recession cycle) exists, there's no reason to think it has anything to do with the gold standard, which could just be coincidental (ala "spurious correlation").
- CryptoPunk 8y ago
  Banking was regulated by states. There was no free market. "Free banking" laws passed by various states prevented banks from branching. These "unit banks" lacked the financial diversity that comes from having multiple branches and thus were more subject to collapse in the event of monetary shocks. After the civil war, the federal government required banks to hold federal bonds as reserves on their deposits at an ordained ratio. Changes in the supply of federal bonds translated to fluctuations of the money supply, which is what caused the national booms and busts. There were other places in the world that tried free banking, like Canada before it created a central bank, and Scotland during its free banking era, and their financial systems were famously stable.

not_kurt_godel 8y ago

An outcome of cryptocurrency would not be elimination of artificial recession as evidenced by the repeated losses of 75% of value practically overnight. Seriously, do you even understand the words you are saying or are you just blindly parrotting something you read on the Internet?

ghostinmachine 8y ago
I do understand. It's not an outcome of specifically cryptocurrency but distributed nature of it. The losses that we see are because of the uncertainty surrounding it. It's a form of currency and should be used as one. In the current market it's being used as more like trading stocks than currency. Currently it's not completely distributed, from the people hoarding it to the ICOs to the whales and to centralized exchanges, it all needs to be taken into account, those would be bugs. I would like the idea of limiting amount of money one can hold and spend in a limited period to avoid such disasters. This would limit the freedom too. But we will have to talk about how much freedom does one person/entity need, (yours ends where mine begins). It's not perfect yet, but it's a nice idea. If perfected it would a lot harder to artificially manipulate than the current system. At the very least, a lot many people would be responsible for any disaster instead of a few.
- adwn 8y ago
  > I would like the idea of limiting amount of money one can hold and spend in a limited period to avoid such disasters. This would limit the freedom too. But we will have to talk about how much freedom does one person/entity need, (yours ends where mine begins). And yet, two posts up you complained about control of people's freedom: >>> Reason is that control of money grants banks and governments great control over citizenry. Do you no see the irony in that contradiction? > If perfected [...] Hah! What a huge "if" you're smuggling into your hypothesis right there.
  - ghostinmachine 8y ago
    > And yet, two posts up you complained about control of people's freedom I'm a supporter of reasonable freedoms not unlimited freedoms. I would like checks and balances on power and it's accumulation whether it's a person or group of persons. Just like voting rights, we at least try to achieve equal voting share for each person. Money is power it needs reasonable checks and balances so that wishes of few do not affect many. No one needs $100 million to survive or live a reasonably good life. If you need more for an endeavor you're free to appeal to others to invest into your effort. Point is, large changes needs to be made by proportionate amount of wills. > Do you no see the irony in that contradiction? There's no contradiction. It's just a suggestion to avoid a few of such problems, but if you have a better suggestions, I welcome it. >Hah! What a huge "if" Yes that's a big 'if', just like for any other idea. Only fools are certain of things, those without power have only hope.
    - adwn 8y ago
      Cryptocurrencies cannot prevent accumulation of extreme wealth in the hands of a few. The reason is simple, yet important: Money is not wealth. Money represents wealth. If you restrict the amount of money per person, wealth will be represented by a different metric – camels, for example. > Yes that's a big 'if', just like for any other idea. No. Any idea that requires such an "if" (i.e., the implementation has to be perfect for the idea to succeed) is doomed to fail.

atq2119 8y ago

About those "artificial recessions": The historical experience with a gold standard without central banking is the closest we have to what an economy built on only Bitcoin would look like. If you look at the 19th century, it had far worse cycles of strong recessions than we've ever seen in the 20th or 21st century since central banking was established, and then later we got rid of the gold standard. So... were those frequent 19th century recessions somehow preferable because they were "natural"?

Chris2048 8y ago
Gold standard might be the "closest" example, but is it a reasonable one? cyber-currency differs in significant ways - You don't need to bite a bitcoin. Also, without knowing why the difference (wrt recession cycle) exists, there's no reason to think it has anything to do with the gold standard, which could just be coincidental (ala "spurious correlation").
CryptoPunk 8y ago
Banking was regulated by states. There was no free market. "Free banking" laws passed by various states prevented banks from branching. These "unit banks" lacked the financial diversity that comes from having multiple branches and thus were more subject to collapse in the event of monetary shocks. After the civil war, the federal government required banks to hold federal bonds as reserves on their deposits at an ordained ratio. Changes in the supply of federal bonds translated to fluctuations of the money supply, which is what caused the national booms and busts. There were other places in the world that tried free banking, like Canada before it created a central bank, and Scotland during its free banking era, and their financial systems were famously stable.