3 ms·

The same arguments you make against Crypto can be made against Central Banks and I'd say governments in general. There are institutions which only exist becaus

The same arguments you make against Crypto can be made against Central Banks and I'd say governments in general. There are institutions which only exist because humans project themselves into the future and imagine the consequences that they'd suffer because of adverse events and they create institutions to protect them against such events. People are scared as hell of inflation and that's why the Fed was created. The "stable prices" thing is an elegant way to say "prevent inflation". Now people are really upset that the Fed won't allow deflation and is pretty much encouraging inflation. They see this as a betrayal to the public and the reason why the Fed was created in the first place. There is a misalignment between the Fed inflation preference of 2% and the public inflation preference which is 0% or even -2% Enter crypto: what draws people to crypto is deflation. People love deflation, they gravitate towards crypto because deflation is hard built in protocol and it brings about financial nirvana for the saver: that is being able to increase one's net worth without doing any tangible work, manual or intellectual. You can try to remove it but efforts will fail and it will take a whole lot of effort just to prevent it from getting bigger. The government pretty much gave up on removing drugs, cash, tax evasion.. Crypto is the same thing, great for the individual, but very bad for society. Tragedy of the commons can't be solved , so the work is to contain because they can't extinguish it. Better yet it can be extinguished but it would require government to do the one thing it can't possibly do: A similarly deflationary dollar

CPLX 5y ago
> The same arguments you make against Crypto can be made against Central Banks and I'd say governments in general. Governments have millions of extremely well organized heavily armed people who can kill you if you don't accept the medium of exchange they're proposing.
- jariel 5y ago
  Observer was incorrect in his 'observations', but you're getting ridiculously conspiratorial here. Governments and Central Banks create immense value, they serve many purposes. They can do things we don't always agree with but that's inevitable. If government disappeared civilization would halt. If Central Banks disappeared, basically the same - everything would stop. Most of the important things that the Central Banks do are published, you can watch it happen. Aside from their obvious value, the very concept of a 'common medium of exchange' is also immensely useful for society. Despite your claim, you're free to use 'Santa Claus Dollars' to do what you want, but that would server no purpose. And you also don't have to hold currency - we live in an era of computers, you can immediately exchange any USD you have for any zillion other kinds of store of value or currencies. You like Swiss Frans - go ahead - buy as many as you want. Crypto serves no real purpose as a currency or a store of value - if BTC and every crypto went to $0 tommorrow, the only thing that would change is we'd stop wasting energy on factoring prime numbers. Obsevers comments about 'governments extinguishing BTC' are nonsensica: nobody is trying to stop crypto, and frankly, as of today they don't care. If the US and EU decided together to ban crypto you can be assured that it would probably be worthless very quickly - there are very few people who want to put vast sums in an asset that could land them in jail. Finally: "Better yet it can be extinguished but it would require government to do the one thing it can't possibly do: A similarly deflationary dollar" Is also missing the point because nobody wants hyper strong currency but a few people who misunderstand currency. It would be nice to have dollars that increased in value over time, but that feature of currency would be very costly and having damaging effects on the economy. What we want is a currency that maintains it's value but very slightly depreciates over time. Just a tiny bit. That's ideal. That way you don't have to worry about your current accounts falling in value, and if you want a better store of value you can do that. If there is an issue with the Central Banks then we should address it because we need 'good money' a lot more than we need to collectively imagine that 'special long numbers' have some kind of value.
  - ObserverNeutral 5y ago
    > If government disappeared civilization would halt. People who are confident in themselves and have the guts to go alone...they don't want any government protection, matter of fact they never asked for it and don't want to pay for it. Government doesn't leave these people a choice to opt out of their protection, hence they start prosecuting them > if the US and EU decided together to ban crypto Coinbase has 50m users, and that's just one exchange. Nobody has the political goodwill to upset hundreds of millions of cryptocurrency investors who'd vote them out next time around. Maybe only China and Russia can. For sure not the US or the EU > Is also missing the point because nobody wants hyper strong currency but a few people who misunderstand currency. BTC success proves that the majority of the population wants that, it might be ignorant but in the end academic papers are not how decisions are made in megasocial groups such as nation states. The population comes up with an idea about how things should be run and dealt with, then people expresses such idea via voting with their wallet, voting with their feet, proper ballots, pressure on institutions etc. Your beloved Fed is the most political agent out there, which was created to calm the population's worries and in response to people worries about inflation and unemployment. Sure enough it's mandate is super political and the answer to people's worries: 1) Price stability which is a way of saying keep inflation low. That's because the population was scarred by inflation in the past and wants institutions to protect against it. 2) Maximum employment: Is there anything more political than this? People were scarred by losing their jobs in the past and want institutions to protect against such thing. People are realizing that the Fed is not doing the best job it can possibly do with #1, instead it is actively hoping for more inflation. So they are looking around to see if there's any concept which is dealing with their worries in a better way and they found crypto > If there is an issue with the Central Banks then we should address it because we need 'good money' a lot more than we need to collectively imagine that 'special long numbers' have some kind of value. That's not what you do. You don't fight, you leave and go where are you served better. People hate inflation and want deflation (regardless of the macroeconomics implications, that's what they want. Period), and sure enough they are voting with their wallets and abandoning the Fed which has a 2% inflation target towards BTC which has an inflation target heavily in the negative and a limited supply
    - 5y ago
- ObserverNeutral 5y ago
  > Governments have millions of extremely well organized heavily armed people who can kill you if you don't accept the medium of exchange they're proposing. Which medium of exchange are those extremely organized and heavily armed people compensated with? When societal shifts happen they happen at a similar rate across every profession or job. TikTok was just as big among military members compared to people of similar age demographic.

CPLX 5y ago

> The same arguments you make against Crypto can be made against Central Banks and I'd say governments in general. Governments have millions of extremely well organized heavily armed people who can kill you if you don't accept the medium of exchange they're proposing.

jariel 5y ago
Observer was incorrect in his 'observations', but you're getting ridiculously conspiratorial here. Governments and Central Banks create immense value, they serve many purposes. They can do things we don't always agree with but that's inevitable. If government disappeared civilization would halt. If Central Banks disappeared, basically the same - everything would stop. Most of the important things that the Central Banks do are published, you can watch it happen. Aside from their obvious value, the very concept of a 'common medium of exchange' is also immensely useful for society. Despite your claim, you're free to use 'Santa Claus Dollars' to do what you want, but that would server no purpose. And you also don't have to hold currency - we live in an era of computers, you can immediately exchange any USD you have for any zillion other kinds of store of value or currencies. You like Swiss Frans - go ahead - buy as many as you want. Crypto serves no real purpose as a currency or a store of value - if BTC and every crypto went to $0 tommorrow, the only thing that would change is we'd stop wasting energy on factoring prime numbers. Obsevers comments about 'governments extinguishing BTC' are nonsensica: nobody is trying to stop crypto, and frankly, as of today they don't care. If the US and EU decided together to ban crypto you can be assured that it would probably be worthless very quickly - there are very few people who want to put vast sums in an asset that could land them in jail. Finally: "Better yet it can be extinguished but it would require government to do the one thing it can't possibly do: A similarly deflationary dollar" Is also missing the point because nobody wants hyper strong currency but a few people who misunderstand currency. It would be nice to have dollars that increased in value over time, but that feature of currency would be very costly and having damaging effects on the economy. What we want is a currency that maintains it's value but very slightly depreciates over time. Just a tiny bit. That's ideal. That way you don't have to worry about your current accounts falling in value, and if you want a better store of value you can do that. If there is an issue with the Central Banks then we should address it because we need 'good money' a lot more than we need to collectively imagine that 'special long numbers' have some kind of value.
- ObserverNeutral 5y ago
  > If government disappeared civilization would halt. People who are confident in themselves and have the guts to go alone...they don't want any government protection, matter of fact they never asked for it and don't want to pay for it. Government doesn't leave these people a choice to opt out of their protection, hence they start prosecuting them > if the US and EU decided together to ban crypto Coinbase has 50m users, and that's just one exchange. Nobody has the political goodwill to upset hundreds of millions of cryptocurrency investors who'd vote them out next time around. Maybe only China and Russia can. For sure not the US or the EU > Is also missing the point because nobody wants hyper strong currency but a few people who misunderstand currency. BTC success proves that the majority of the population wants that, it might be ignorant but in the end academic papers are not how decisions are made in megasocial groups such as nation states. The population comes up with an idea about how things should be run and dealt with, then people expresses such idea via voting with their wallet, voting with their feet, proper ballots, pressure on institutions etc. Your beloved Fed is the most political agent out there, which was created to calm the population's worries and in response to people worries about inflation and unemployment. Sure enough it's mandate is super political and the answer to people's worries: 1) Price stability which is a way of saying keep inflation low. That's because the population was scarred by inflation in the past and wants institutions to protect against it. 2) Maximum employment: Is there anything more political than this? People were scarred by losing their jobs in the past and want institutions to protect against such thing. People are realizing that the Fed is not doing the best job it can possibly do with #1, instead it is actively hoping for more inflation. So they are looking around to see if there's any concept which is dealing with their worries in a better way and they found crypto > If there is an issue with the Central Banks then we should address it because we need 'good money' a lot more than we need to collectively imagine that 'special long numbers' have some kind of value. That's not what you do. You don't fight, you leave and go where are you served better. People hate inflation and want deflation (regardless of the macroeconomics implications, that's what they want. Period), and sure enough they are voting with their wallets and abandoning the Fed which has a 2% inflation target towards BTC which has an inflation target heavily in the negative and a limited supply
  - 5y ago
ObserverNeutral 5y ago
> Governments have millions of extremely well organized heavily armed people who can kill you if you don't accept the medium of exchange they're proposing. Which medium of exchange are those extremely organized and heavily armed people compensated with? When societal shifts happen they happen at a similar rate across every profession or job. TikTok was just as big among military members compared to people of similar age demographic.