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In 1933, Roosevelt banned holding gold and silver. In 1934, the Gold Reserve Act allowed the government to set a fixed price for gold and buy out all domestic g
by fny 6y ago
In 1933, Roosevelt banned holding gold and silver. In 1934, the Gold Reserve Act allowed the government to set a fixed price for gold and buy out all domestic gold holdings for cash. This remained in effect until 1961 when the laws were relaxed. Then in 1971, the US jumped off the gold standard. Prior to that point, gold was the global reserve currency.
BTC is far less widely owned and far less legitimate than gold was in the 1930s (it actually was the global reserve currency then). The political friction is low for heavy regulation or an outright ban across even developed markets.
My bet is that the green argument will be the first attempt to neuter BTC.
Disclaimer: BTC neutral. I own a small amount, and treat it like an option on a speculative asset.
- qertoip 6y agoIn my country running a sports gym, a restaurant or a hotel is illegal. So yeah, I won't be surprised if Bitcoin will suddenly become illegal. Literally everything is becoming illegal as we speak.
- esnard 6y agoWhich country are you living in?
- qertoip 6y agoPoland.
- Ariez 6y agoWhat the hell - what country? You need to move ASAP.
- gruez 6y agoMany western countries have banned those things because of covid restrictions.
- fvv 6y agoI suppose he mean temporarily because covid restrictions..
- flippant 6y agoAfter a year it’s not reasonable to call the restrictions temporary.
- exyi 6y agoIn reasonable countries these businesses still get at least some compensation. That makes it a temporary restriction, the government would not be interested in paying it forever.
- qertoip 6y ago"Temporarily" like a f**cking YEAR. Some business owners committed suicide over this, so I guess its safe to say permanent for them at least.
- tw04 6y agoHe's being inflammatory by trying to imply that temporary pandemic restrictions are permanent laws banning those things. Everything isn't becoming illegal, society has just decided the lives of our at-risk citizens are more important than a temporary halt to social life.
- mk81 6y ago> temporary I lol-ed
- Ariez 6y agoOkay, pretty annoying comment by him!
- jMyles 6y agoGross. "Society" hasn't decided this. A fringe cohort of bureaucrats, skilled at dressing up pseudoscientific police state tactics as public health, have rammed it through against the objection of the most accomplished experts on the topic. And it's not to protect "our at risk citizens" but to protect our affluent citizens. Since all of the ostensible attenuation of horizontal interdiction depends on resources which poor people simply don't have, the acuity is spread is necessarily wealth-stratified in such a configuration. And the consequences haven't been "a temporary halt to social life", but death, disease, and misery visited about marginalized and unhoused communities under the euphemistic guise of an "essential" working class.
- qertoip 6y ago"Temporary"? It's been A YEAR and tens of thousands of businesses and families going bankrupt. And there is no end in sight to this.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y agoI came here to say what you just said so I am glad someone did it more eloquently. I find it interesting how many things recently were rationalized/pushed using environmentalism. I suppose it is a step forward from think of the children.
- throwaway20875 6y ago>My bet is that the green argument will be the first attempt to neuter BTC. Seeing a lot of seemingly inorganic noise on this. At the same time in the US, we are running a power grid like a country that inherited it from its imperialist colonizers from the distant past with no inherent capability to improve or even sustain it. 650K miles of transmission lines are oversubscribed and there are less than a dozen regional substations that act as an aggregate single-point-of-failure for the entire country. Texas was the canary in the coal mine. The fact that we're not having the genuine discussion around improving the efficiency, cleanliness, and resiliency of our infrastructure lays the true capabilities of my country and the intentions of those in power bare: we are a declining power managed by corrupt and power mad psychopaths. Bitcoin is the least of our worries - it's actually a symptom of loss of faith in the system.
- fny 6y agoI agree Bitcoin is the least of anyone's worries from an energy perspective. The politicians just need some excuse to take on cryptocurrency, and the green argument smells like the kind of thing they'd latch onto.
- throwaway20875 6y agoYes, I understood and agree with your point. I'm adding that it's a distraction from a far more serious discussion and revealing in itself of deeper issues.
- Loughla 6y ago>The fact that we're not having the genuine discussion around improving the efficiency, cleanliness, and resiliency of our infrastructure lays the true capabilities of my country and the intentions of those in power bare: we are a declining power managed by corrupt and power mad psychopaths. While I agree that we are managed by corrupt and power mad psychopaths, I'm not sure infrastructure spending (or lack thereof) should lay at their feet. It is a symptom of our elections that infrastructure and other non-sexy spending takes a backseat to large, mega projects designed to funnel federal and state dollars to localities. Politicians do not set the rules, voters set the rules. And the rule is that stability and planning are less important than flash and PR. And it's sad, and I'm convinced that this shortsightedness will cause people I know to die from something that could've been prevented (not coronavirus, like cancer or starvation or war).
- sergefaguet 6y agowhat is important to remember is that people who ignored the law made a huge return on holding their gold, and people who followed the law lost out bans are a very strong advertisement for piling into the asset being banned. especially when holders of the asset in question are quite difficult to identify another related point is that busting regulations is a great way to create great wealth. Dhirubhai Ambani created his first capital by smuggling. the Rothschilds did too – by busting Napoleon's sanctions make your own conclusions about ways to behave in response to economic regulations ;)