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The reason we have to go to the trouble of making cryptocurrencies is that busybodies like this guy are endlessly trying to reduce our freedom. They're not tryi

The reason we have to go to the trouble of making cryptocurrencies is that busybodies like this guy are endlessly trying to reduce our freedom. They're not trying to look out for people; they're trying to protect their ability to print money and steal. In crypto parlance, they want to remain the VIPs that have centralized special privileged access to create tokens, and force usage thereof. But now we have the technology to enforce currency issuance by immutable programs. That's a better way, because programs are very strong exactly where humans are very weak.

hnbad 5y ago
Just to be clear, by "ability to print money and steal" you mean having a central bank and levying taxes? You're making a moral argument against the idea of government controlled currency in general, yes? Can you clarify why you think controlled currencies are morally bad and how cryptocurrencies are better? I'd love to hear a less abstract argument than "more freedom". EDIT: I assume downvotes mean there are people who like cryptocurrencies and agree with the parent. Maybe some of those could answer my question? "Freedom" is a loaded term with conflicting definitions and ideas like "taxation is theft" don't stand in isolation because they imply logical conclusions that most people prefer not to make explicit.
- yenwel 5y ago
  money printing is done by handing it to banks at zero interest and flooded on the stock exchanges. The rich get richer and the poor can buy less with the same money since wages are the last thing to raise (while the rich buy up houses and commodities with their free money). Inflation is a tax on the poor and elderly. Literally since VAT is percentage-wise levied on relatively more expensive consumer goods and if wages rise they come in higher income pay scales for taxation. Crony capitalism at it's peak where the players get bail outs and handouts and the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears.
  - hnbad 5y ago
    Okay, and how do cryptocurrencies fix this? Mining is supposed to be increasingly cost prohibitive so in an ideal world it would eventually cease to have a meaningful impact on currency supply within practical timeframes. Assuming economic growth holds, this would mean constant deflation (i.e. value of the currency continually increases as its supply remains quasi constant while the overall economy increases). Since transfer of cryptocurrencies incurs transaction fees and the value of those currencies only ever increases, transactions would eventually become cost prohibitive for smaller values. So realistically it would seem that we'd eventually have to transition to representative money instead (i.e. you don't transfer crypto between wallets, you shift numbers in a trusted third party's database which itself holds crypto for you). This would lose most of the benefit of the blockchain for these smaller transactions and effectively create banks because these third parties would have operating expenses they would have to charge you for (either directly or by using your crypto for investments). So in other words, this sounds a lot like returning to the gold standard with extra steps.
    - bigger_inside 5y ago
      that "would" in your shift argument is already reality, that's the lightning network, which transmits bitcoin off-chain for pennies, but in a decentralized way, because it utilizes existing bitcoin balances on lightning nodes for it. There is still no bank, BUT there is a more centralized "arbiter", yes. So your argument does hold about the trustlessness, though not entirely the centralization. The one thing that's central in this debate is to understand that current currencies are built to be inflationary, which causes the need for constant economic growth. Bitcoin is not. The "bitcoin fixes it" meme is hopeful utopianism, I grant you that, but bitcoin would not carry this growth mandate in its bowels that state currencies do.
      - Kbelicius 5y ago
        > that "would" in your shift argument is already reality, that's the lightning network, The reality today isn't lightning network but centralized exchanges. That may change in the future but it might not.
- delaaxe 5y ago
  "Inflation is legalized counterfeiting and counterfeiting is criminalized inflation. "-Robert Breedlove
- atom_arranger 5y ago
  By printing money the government steals value from existing holders of currency. It’s effectively an undemocratic (amount is not generally voted on) tax on people’s earnings and cash savings.
  - masswerk 5y ago
    Inflation/deflation is an effect of the amount of money (or in general: any kind of material compensation for trade, work and services) available and which potential customers are able to spend and the amount of goods (and the capabilities to produce them), which are actually available. Meaning, it's a function and not necessarily a conspiracy. Edit: In other words, if you are working really hard and are making earnings which allow you to spend more on Teslas than Musk can produce, you are creating inflation. Money or other tokens.
- bigger_inside 5y ago
  not OP. But the less-buzzwordy argument is this: the existence of money itself isn't the problem. The problem is that the modern monetary system is built on inflation and supermassive debt, and this combination has a bunch of highly negative outcomes: -it systematically expropriates poor people. Inflation will make sure your money is worth gradually less, so the only option to save it is though real estate and stocks, which poor people have little access to. -this goes along with the need for companies, and the economy at large, to keep growing year over year. Our modern infinite-growth mandate, the thing that is actually destroying the planet, is based on the system of money we now have, as saving loses you money: you have to make more, consume more, make more, consume more, or everyone loses the money they have. That is to stay, money is no longer a store of value, which is one of its major functions. - speaking of destroying the planet, after the end of the gold standard, the current dollar/euro system is backed, in complictaed ways, by their uses in international trade, especially oil. After the fall of their productive capacites (all outsourced), the US now basically exports dollars to finance their internal consumption and worldwide hegemony. Because all nations need USD to trade, esp oil, the US can print and print and sink that into other countries that buy it while keeping inflation mus lower (still there) than it otherwise would be. This is a circle, as it both finances global hegemony, but also needs it: it is that hegemony that enforces the use of USD as a world transactional currency, and US "regime change" operations generally hit countries that try to escape this system. -a house of cards: central banks don't print most of the money; private banks do. "fractional reserve banking" means that banks only need a fraction of the money that they lend out on reserve, which means that when it has a million, it can make many millions in loans to customers, effectively creating the rest of the money every time it makes the loan. This is margin/leveraged trading on a global and massive scale, and it is what makes banks crash every time a hiccup occurs in that system. It's a time bomb. These are all massive systemic problems, and the -way- central banking is now organized is the problem. Could states organize this without these problems? sure; "gah states are unfreedom" is not the problem here, the capture of states by global corporate capitalism is. Will states change? no, of course not, not without a massive systemic crash or revolution. Do we need bitcoin to save this? strictly no, but bitcoiners see bitcoin as a sneaky trojan horse to destabilize this system, and -one- hope to overcome this massively cancerous state of affairs, for a host of reasons beyond mere dreaming that would double this already long comment in size. All I'm saying s: like everything, this is much, much more complicated than "bitcoin volatile" or "bitcoin energy bad".
f6v 5y ago
I don’t think that the Netherlands is the country where wealth is routinely stolen from common folk.
- becquerel 5y ago
  The economy of every capitalist country is based on the exploitation of the working class.
- mopsi 5y ago
  Netherlands is one of the largest channels between the EU and offshore tax havens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich
- b3lvedere 5y ago
  Depends how you obtained that wealth. The people love personal success stories, but dislike people who show off too much or exploited certain situations. There is this guy that made quite some money on covid masks. A lot of people were not too happy he made a profit on that.
  - adflux 5y ago
    People aren't happy about that because he told everyone he was doing it for free. That he wasn't making a profit on the deal. Also, he used inside info to sell his trash quality face masks. Fuck Sywert van Lienden, disgusting crisis profiteer.
- adflux 5y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in... Take a look at this list and see which country has the highest wealth inequality in the world. Hint: it's the Netherlands.
  - posix_me_less 5y ago
    Wow.
masswerk 5y ago
Fun fact: most of the money is issued by ordinary banks, not by the bodies presumably in control of the token/currency. (Any such control is rather remote and indirect.)

hnbad 5y ago

Just to be clear, by "ability to print money and steal" you mean having a central bank and levying taxes? You're making a moral argument against the idea of government controlled currency in general, yes? Can you clarify why you think controlled currencies are morally bad and how cryptocurrencies are better? I'd love to hear a less abstract argument than "more freedom". EDIT: I assume downvotes mean there are people who like cryptocurrencies and agree with the parent. Maybe some of those could answer my question? "Freedom" is a loaded term with conflicting definitions and ideas like "taxation is theft" don't stand in isolation because they imply logical conclusions that most people prefer not to make explicit.

yenwel 5y ago
money printing is done by handing it to banks at zero interest and flooded on the stock exchanges. The rich get richer and the poor can buy less with the same money since wages are the last thing to raise (while the rich buy up houses and commodities with their free money). Inflation is a tax on the poor and elderly. Literally since VAT is percentage-wise levied on relatively more expensive consumer goods and if wages rise they come in higher income pay scales for taxation. Crony capitalism at it's peak where the players get bail outs and handouts and the poor get poorer and the middle class disappears.
- hnbad 5y ago
  Okay, and how do cryptocurrencies fix this? Mining is supposed to be increasingly cost prohibitive so in an ideal world it would eventually cease to have a meaningful impact on currency supply within practical timeframes. Assuming economic growth holds, this would mean constant deflation (i.e. value of the currency continually increases as its supply remains quasi constant while the overall economy increases). Since transfer of cryptocurrencies incurs transaction fees and the value of those currencies only ever increases, transactions would eventually become cost prohibitive for smaller values. So realistically it would seem that we'd eventually have to transition to representative money instead (i.e. you don't transfer crypto between wallets, you shift numbers in a trusted third party's database which itself holds crypto for you). This would lose most of the benefit of the blockchain for these smaller transactions and effectively create banks because these third parties would have operating expenses they would have to charge you for (either directly or by using your crypto for investments). So in other words, this sounds a lot like returning to the gold standard with extra steps.
  - bigger_inside 5y ago
    that "would" in your shift argument is already reality, that's the lightning network, which transmits bitcoin off-chain for pennies, but in a decentralized way, because it utilizes existing bitcoin balances on lightning nodes for it. There is still no bank, BUT there is a more centralized "arbiter", yes. So your argument does hold about the trustlessness, though not entirely the centralization. The one thing that's central in this debate is to understand that current currencies are built to be inflationary, which causes the need for constant economic growth. Bitcoin is not. The "bitcoin fixes it" meme is hopeful utopianism, I grant you that, but bitcoin would not carry this growth mandate in its bowels that state currencies do.
    - Kbelicius 5y ago
      > that "would" in your shift argument is already reality, that's the lightning network, The reality today isn't lightning network but centralized exchanges. That may change in the future but it might not.
delaaxe 5y ago
"Inflation is legalized counterfeiting and counterfeiting is criminalized inflation. "-Robert Breedlove
atom_arranger 5y ago
By printing money the government steals value from existing holders of currency. It’s effectively an undemocratic (amount is not generally voted on) tax on people’s earnings and cash savings.
- masswerk 5y ago
  Inflation/deflation is an effect of the amount of money (or in general: any kind of material compensation for trade, work and services) available and which potential customers are able to spend and the amount of goods (and the capabilities to produce them), which are actually available. Meaning, it's a function and not necessarily a conspiracy. Edit: In other words, if you are working really hard and are making earnings which allow you to spend more on Teslas than Musk can produce, you are creating inflation. Money or other tokens.
bigger_inside 5y ago
not OP. But the less-buzzwordy argument is this: the existence of money itself isn't the problem. The problem is that the modern monetary system is built on inflation and supermassive debt, and this combination has a bunch of highly negative outcomes: -it systematically expropriates poor people. Inflation will make sure your money is worth gradually less, so the only option to save it is though real estate and stocks, which poor people have little access to. -this goes along with the need for companies, and the economy at large, to keep growing year over year. Our modern infinite-growth mandate, the thing that is actually destroying the planet, is based on the system of money we now have, as saving loses you money: you have to make more, consume more, make more, consume more, or everyone loses the money they have. That is to stay, money is no longer a store of value, which is one of its major functions. - speaking of destroying the planet, after the end of the gold standard, the current dollar/euro system is backed, in complictaed ways, by their uses in international trade, especially oil. After the fall of their productive capacites (all outsourced), the US now basically exports dollars to finance their internal consumption and worldwide hegemony. Because all nations need USD to trade, esp oil, the US can print and print and sink that into other countries that buy it while keeping inflation mus lower (still there) than it otherwise would be. This is a circle, as it both finances global hegemony, but also needs it: it is that hegemony that enforces the use of USD as a world transactional currency, and US "regime change" operations generally hit countries that try to escape this system. -a house of cards: central banks don't print most of the money; private banks do. "fractional reserve banking" means that banks only need a fraction of the money that they lend out on reserve, which means that when it has a million, it can make many millions in loans to customers, effectively creating the rest of the money every time it makes the loan. This is margin/leveraged trading on a global and massive scale, and it is what makes banks crash every time a hiccup occurs in that system. It's a time bomb. These are all massive systemic problems, and the -way- central banking is now organized is the problem. Could states organize this without these problems? sure; "gah states are unfreedom" is not the problem here, the capture of states by global corporate capitalism is. Will states change? no, of course not, not without a massive systemic crash or revolution. Do we need bitcoin to save this? strictly no, but bitcoiners see bitcoin as a sneaky trojan horse to destabilize this system, and -one- hope to overcome this massively cancerous state of affairs, for a host of reasons beyond mere dreaming that would double this already long comment in size. All I'm saying s: like everything, this is much, much more complicated than "bitcoin volatile" or "bitcoin energy bad".

f6v 5y ago

I don’t think that the Netherlands is the country where wealth is routinely stolen from common folk.

becquerel 5y ago
The economy of every capitalist country is based on the exploitation of the working class.
mopsi 5y ago
Netherlands is one of the largest channels between the EU and offshore tax havens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Sandwich
b3lvedere 5y ago
Depends how you obtained that wealth. The people love personal success stories, but dislike people who show off too much or exploited certain situations. There is this guy that made quite some money on covid masks. A lot of people were not too happy he made a profit on that.
- adflux 5y ago
  People aren't happy about that because he told everyone he was doing it for free. That he wasn't making a profit on the deal. Also, he used inside info to sell his trash quality face masks. Fuck Sywert van Lienden, disgusting crisis profiteer.
adflux 5y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_inequality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_in... Take a look at this list and see which country has the highest wealth inequality in the world. Hint: it's the Netherlands.
- posix_me_less 5y ago
  Wow.

masswerk 5y ago

Fun fact: most of the money is issued by ordinary banks, not by the bodies presumably in control of the token/currency. (Any such control is rather remote and indirect.)