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Exactly. The whole "anonymous, decentralized, peer-to-peer" thing went out the window a long time ago. Now, Bitcoin is a digital yuan with an infinite history
by 6f8986c3 5y ago
Exactly. The whole "anonymous, decentralized, peer-to-peer" thing went out the window a long time ago.
Now, Bitcoin is a digital yuan with an infinite history of every purchase made with it (the blockchain). No thanks.
At this point, I'm starting to think the only viable alternative, from a medium-of-exchange perspective, is in commodity money -- metals and other materials that possess intrinsic value.
- dumbfoundded 5y agoThere isn't really only a single viable or perfect system. Each monetary system has different tradeoffs. Commodities work well until liquidity becomes a problem and so governments print fiat commodity-backed currency. Eventually a situation arises and the government needs extra $$$ so they start to inflate the currency and eventually remove the backing once everyone is already using the fiat currency. Credit systems are great for liquidity but have cascading failures once a situation arises requires settling up.
- antonvs 5y ago> metals and other materials that possess intrinsic value. What role do you believe intrinsic value plays? Intrinsic value is useful if you're trying to "peg" a currency to some other measure of wealth. But that only works for relatively small markets. Currencies are a representation of wealth in a society. The wealth in a society is necessarily greater than that of any single asset. As such, the value of a currency based on an asset must be surplus to any supposed intrinsic value that asset has. This means intrinsic value serves no direct useful purpose for a currency - at best, it's a secondary consequence of some more important property, such as scarcity.