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USD - You mine USD coins by exchanging goods or services, or by prostituting your time. But the coin is centralised and the governing authority is constantly ad

USD - You mine USD coins by exchanging goods or services, or by prostituting your time. But the coin is centralised and the governing authority is constantly adding supply.

mckirk 6y ago
It's basically Dogecoin with old presidents instead of a dog.
- anonisko 6y ago
  At least dogecoin has a static and predictable supply inflation and doesn't glorify slave owners and indian killers.
  - emptyparadise 6y ago
    Kabosu the Shiba Inu is my president.
  - WoahNoun 6y ago
    Inflation and changes to the money supply are not the same thing. This conflation gets pushed by libertarians/techno-libertarians constantly. The money supply can increase and inflation (the price of goods and services) can go down.
    - mdpopescu 6y ago
      To inflate = to increase in size. The money supply increases = it inflates.
      - j4yav 6y ago
        That's correct, and also prices increase (or inflate). The parent is saying conflating increase in prices and increase in monetary supply can be incorrect.
        mdpopescu 6y ago
        Sure. However, the problem is the increase in the money supply, which is theft. The increase in prices is rather irrelevant - inflation would still be bad even if the prices were to decrease. (There are hundreds of papers explaining why.)
        WoahNoun 6y ago
        How is an increase in the money supply theft if increases in price are irrelevant?
        mdpopescu 6y ago
        The same way debasing gold coins is theft, even if the prices don't rise (because, say, you just conquered another country and got a new bunch of slaves to produce stuff). Claiming that inflation is a rise in prices confuses cause and effect. As I said, this is rather well discussed by various economists. See for example https://mises.org/wire/inflation-beginners https://mises.org/wire/inflation-beginners
        WoahNoun 6y ago
        The Mises org is libertarian clap-trap and not serious economics.
      - WoahNoun 6y ago
        That is a disingenuous argument, at best. Inflation is a specific economic term with a specific definition. And it's not increase in the money supply.
SilasX 6y ago
The mining equivalent for the USD would be when you sell securities to the Federal Reserve in exchange for new dollars.
nexthash 6y ago
And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. You can pay taxes with it. It is backed by a strong authority and is used as the reserve currency/economic driver of the world's countries. It is stable and does not suffer price volatility. Fortunes do not get lost if they are in cash at the bank. Crypto has none of these things. There's been an uptick of crypto fanboys coming to this forum lately. I'm fine with that and the technology is interesting. However, if you try to pollute our space with ideologies and conspiracy theories about the fed, you will not be unchallenged. Just like USD, crypto has downsides. Do not sweep the downsides of crypto under the rug for some utopiaic ideology. Be reasonable.
- knocte 6y ago
  > And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. If somebody steals your crypto and you know her/his identity, you can still go through courts to get it back (provided you are paying your taxes; which you can pay today in crypto in some jurisdictions). Now, before you tell me: but most of the time when someone steals your crypto you don't know who is it. Well: you need better IT security/know-how (same as when people were starting to use the internet on the late-80s or 90s). PS: Cryptocurrency is not about not paying taxes. In fact I think taxes would be easier to collect if every merchant implemented this payment system.
  - whoisburbansky 6y ago
    Saying crypto isn’t about taxes sidesteps the most obvious way in which the dollar has any real value at all, which is that the IRS only accepts dollars, which has nothing to do with merchants per se, and more to do with the fact that the government can throw you in jail for not having enough dollars.
    - knocte 6y ago
      That will be a moot point soon, considering that even if converting bitcoin to USD is not that difficult anyway, some places (read: not merchants, see link) will just convert it for you automatically when taking your payment, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_mayor_francis_suarez_just_got_miami/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_m... BTW I had my doubts about if it's true that the state can incarcerate you for not paying taxes, and it turns out that if you are considered a person to be in a state of bankruptcy, some laws such as the 14th Amendment prevent you to get jailed. Read more about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debtors'_prisons_(1970%E2%80%93current) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debto...
arcticbull 6y ago
> But the coin is centralised and the governing authority is constantly adding supply. ... the governing authority is constantly managing supply to ensure a 2% level of average inflation :) thereby ensuring resiliency to shocks like global pandemics, and varying population and productivity. It's also digital, and thankfully, not programmable, because DAO. There's a reason there's no "USLaws.exe" - the vast majority of contract law is about figuring in externalities that failed to be included in the original contract. The downside of course is the conspiracy theories.
- mantap 6y ago
  The whole point of having that positive inflation is that it encourages people to not hoard dollars and to instead invest their savings in something else. There is a hope that the something else is something productive but in many cases it's not anything particularly productive. Reasonable people can differ on whether capitalizing an internet currency is productive or not.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    I actually agree completely. I’ve always found it funny that crypto folks rail against inflation in currency when it’s likely the sole reason their whatever it is (I say that due to complete lack of consensus around exactly you know what it is) got off the ground.
r_singh 6y ago
I appreciate the wit (wittiness?), but prostituting your time sounds a bit harsh IMHO. Makes me wonder, does hacker news have a minimum age policy? I think there would be few younger readers..

USD - You mine USD coins by exchanging goods or services, or by prostituting your time. But the coin is centralised and the governing authority is constantly adding supply.

mckirk 6y ago

It's basically Dogecoin with old presidents instead of a dog.

anonisko 6y ago
At least dogecoin has a static and predictable supply inflation and doesn't glorify slave owners and indian killers.
- emptyparadise 6y ago
  Kabosu the Shiba Inu is my president.
- WoahNoun 6y ago
  Inflation and changes to the money supply are not the same thing. This conflation gets pushed by libertarians/techno-libertarians constantly. The money supply can increase and inflation (the price of goods and services) can go down.
  - mdpopescu 6y ago
    To inflate = to increase in size. The money supply increases = it inflates.
    - j4yav 6y ago
      That's correct, and also prices increase (or inflate). The parent is saying conflating increase in prices and increase in monetary supply can be incorrect.
      - mdpopescu 6y ago
        Sure. However, the problem is the increase in the money supply, which is theft. The increase in prices is rather irrelevant - inflation would still be bad even if the prices were to decrease. (There are hundreds of papers explaining why.)
        WoahNoun 6y ago
        How is an increase in the money supply theft if increases in price are irrelevant?
        mdpopescu 6y ago
        The same way debasing gold coins is theft, even if the prices don't rise (because, say, you just conquered another country and got a new bunch of slaves to produce stuff). Claiming that inflation is a rise in prices confuses cause and effect. As I said, this is rather well discussed by various economists. See for example https://mises.org/wire/inflation-beginners https://mises.org/wire/inflation-beginners
        WoahNoun 6y ago
        The Mises org is libertarian clap-trap and not serious economics.
    - WoahNoun 6y ago
      That is a disingenuous argument, at best. Inflation is a specific economic term with a specific definition. And it's not increase in the money supply.

SilasX 6y ago

The mining equivalent for the USD would be when you sell securities to the Federal Reserve in exchange for new dollars.

nexthash 6y ago

And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. You can pay taxes with it. It is backed by a strong authority and is used as the reserve currency/economic driver of the world's countries. It is stable and does not suffer price volatility. Fortunes do not get lost if they are in cash at the bank. Crypto has none of these things. There's been an uptick of crypto fanboys coming to this forum lately. I'm fine with that and the technology is interesting. However, if you try to pollute our space with ideologies and conspiracy theories about the fed, you will not be unchallenged. Just like USD, crypto has downsides. Do not sweep the downsides of crypto under the rug for some utopiaic ideology. Be reasonable.

knocte 6y ago
> And if somebody steals your coin, you can go through courts and banks to get it back. If somebody steals your crypto and you know her/his identity, you can still go through courts to get it back (provided you are paying your taxes; which you can pay today in crypto in some jurisdictions). Now, before you tell me: but most of the time when someone steals your crypto you don't know who is it. Well: you need better IT security/know-how (same as when people were starting to use the internet on the late-80s or 90s). PS: Cryptocurrency is not about not paying taxes. In fact I think taxes would be easier to collect if every merchant implemented this payment system.
- whoisburbansky 6y ago
  Saying crypto isn’t about taxes sidesteps the most obvious way in which the dollar has any real value at all, which is that the IRS only accepts dollars, which has nothing to do with merchants per se, and more to do with the fact that the government can throw you in jail for not having enough dollars.
  - knocte 6y ago
    That will be a moot point soon, considering that even if converting bitcoin to USD is not that difficult anyway, some places (read: not merchants, see link) will just convert it for you automatically when taking your payment, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_mayor_francis_suarez_just_got_miami/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/lia0ns/wow_miami_m... BTW I had my doubts about if it's true that the state can incarcerate you for not paying taxes, and it turns out that if you are considered a person to be in a state of bankruptcy, some laws such as the 14th Amendment prevent you to get jailed. Read more about this here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debtors'_prisons_(1970%E2%80%93current) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors%27_prison#Modern_debto...

arcticbull 6y ago

> But the coin is centralised and the governing authority is constantly adding supply. ... the governing authority is constantly managing supply to ensure a 2% level of average inflation :) thereby ensuring resiliency to shocks like global pandemics, and varying population and productivity. It's also digital, and thankfully, not programmable, because DAO. There's a reason there's no "USLaws.exe" - the vast majority of contract law is about figuring in externalities that failed to be included in the original contract. The downside of course is the conspiracy theories.

mantap 6y ago
The whole point of having that positive inflation is that it encourages people to not hoard dollars and to instead invest their savings in something else. There is a hope that the something else is something productive but in many cases it's not anything particularly productive. Reasonable people can differ on whether capitalizing an internet currency is productive or not.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  I actually agree completely. I’ve always found it funny that crypto folks rail against inflation in currency when it’s likely the sole reason their whatever it is (I say that due to complete lack of consensus around exactly you know what it is) got off the ground.

r_singh 6y ago

I appreciate the wit (wittiness?), but prostituting your time sounds a bit harsh IMHO. Makes me wonder, does hacker news have a minimum age policy? I think there would be few younger readers..