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> but I would bet that money will continue to look more like Bitcoin than it does like today's dollar. so not Bitcoin. Thats the authors point. > Like it or

> but I would bet that money will continue to look more like Bitcoin than it does like today's dollar. so not Bitcoin. Thats the authors point. > Like it or not, and I know a lot of you don't, cryptocurrencies aren't censorable (governments can't stop you from sending or receiving them), are hard to seize, and can't just be inflated away from storing value. These are attractive properties to a lot of people. I agree. It is however getting harder and harder to get BTC without disclosing the full identity. Here in the Netherlands at least its super hard. This does indeed make certain use cases much more harder. It's not outright banning but I bet that more and more restrictions will come around it that only some smart asses will be able to bypass through (semi-)illegal moves.

samatman 5y ago
> so not Bitcoin. Thats the authors point. So not necessarily Bitcoin, is my point. If PoS works out at scale then PoW chains are probably toast. I don't know if that will happen, though, there's a self-licking lollipop aspect to the whole concept which has never set right with me. I'm glad we're going to get to find out though. I think the entire discourse around energy use is misguided, but there's no question that using 2000 times less energy and equipment is both better for the environment and economically superior ceteris paribus. The complete auditability of BTC is not to its credit, but Bitcoin is conservative, not completely static. Big blocks didn't get implemented (I agree with this decision) but Segwit 2x did. If BTC added ZK-SNARK shielded transactions, that would be a big win for privacy and anonymity. That could easily happen in the next ten years. The winning network is more of a game theory problem than a technological one; we'll just have to wait, take such bets as we're comfortable taking, and see what happens.
- mpfundstein 5y ago
  i totally agree :-)
xiphias2 5y ago
Netherlands have one of the lowest capital gain taxes for Bitcoin, so there isn't any real need to hide it there. I'm in Hungary where people preferred to move to other countries (like Malta at 0%) to realize their capital gains than to pay 28%, but finally the government decreases it to 15%, which is a fair deal between a country and its citisens.

samatman 5y ago

> so not Bitcoin. Thats the authors point. So not necessarily Bitcoin, is my point. If PoS works out at scale then PoW chains are probably toast. I don't know if that will happen, though, there's a self-licking lollipop aspect to the whole concept which has never set right with me. I'm glad we're going to get to find out though. I think the entire discourse around energy use is misguided, but there's no question that using 2000 times less energy and equipment is both better for the environment and economically superior ceteris paribus. The complete auditability of BTC is not to its credit, but Bitcoin is conservative, not completely static. Big blocks didn't get implemented (I agree with this decision) but Segwit 2x did. If BTC added ZK-SNARK shielded transactions, that would be a big win for privacy and anonymity. That could easily happen in the next ten years. The winning network is more of a game theory problem than a technological one; we'll just have to wait, take such bets as we're comfortable taking, and see what happens.

mpfundstein 5y ago
i totally agree :-)

xiphias2 5y ago

Netherlands have one of the lowest capital gain taxes for Bitcoin, so there isn't any real need to hide it there. I'm in Hungary where people preferred to move to other countries (like Malta at 0%) to realize their capital gains than to pay 28%, but finally the government decreases it to 15%, which is a fair deal between a country and its citisens.