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Plan falls apart at Step 1. The rest no matter how clever can't work without step 1. China and Russia and others would align against any Western powers seeking
by gfodor 6y ago
Plan falls apart at Step 1. The rest no matter how clever can't work without step 1.
China and Russia and others would align against any Western powers seeking to destroy bitcoin at this point. Beyond that, many Western powers would start running the calculus of the potential upside of marginalizing USD by allowing bitcoin to continue, and choose to not participate or actively undermine efforts of those trying to kill it.
At best it would never materialize given the obvious diplomatic and game theoretic consequences. At worst, it would escalate to an arms race that may even spill over into a real conflict. I'll admit it would be somewhat ironic, in this era of fear around climate change, to see us get into an arms race over who can burn the most energy fastest in an un-winnable game that also doesn't have the same obvious consequences of not de-escalating as MAD.
May answer the question around the Great Filter. I wonder if we'll find ancient ASICs scattered across the surface of Venus.
- camjohnson26 6y agoAnd especially would fall apart at the step where Lockheed takes all that confiscated material and sets up a centralized operation. Never in a million years would China/Russia allow that.
- api 6y agoSo imagine they build it from scratch instead. That would cost a bit more, but still very little compared to what governments can muster. The central point that any large nation state has more than enough resources to 51% Bitcoin is entirely valid.
- gfodor 6y agoYes, but the problem is that it's hard to imagine a world where a large nation state (or group of states) collaborates on a 51% attack and there are no other nation states trying to counter that effort.
- api 6y agoIn that case it turns into something resembling the Reagan spend-the-USSR-to-death Cold War strategy. While China and Russia may see some value in BTC weakening US hegemony, I wonder how much they'd be willing to spend to defend it. Right now the USA can probably spend more and also de-facto controls TSMC (Taiwan is a US client state), the most advanced fab that could make the most power efficient mining chips.
- gfodor 6y agoYes unfortunately in this case this arms race would cause a massive spike in energy costs and CO2 emission.
- hbrav 6y agoI'm not sure I buy this idea that everyone except the US would try and help bitcoin to survive. Sure, China would certainly be happy to see USD become less of a global standard. I think the EU might like to see the Euro more widely adopted in international trade too. But neither of those have a big interest in allowing bitcoin to become dominant. Once you do that you lose your ability to affect inflation through central bank policy, and that's something that's pretty cherished by modern states.