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If people are into anarchist fantasies, sure. I've also suggested that in the essay: > There could be alternative scenarios that cryptocurrencies succeed witho

by liuliu 5y ago

If people are into anarchist fantasies, sure. I've also suggested that in the essay: > There could be alternative scenarios that cryptocurrencies succeed without the United States. Central operators need to grow to be powerful transnational entities that have controlling shares in commodities and other life essentials globally, potentially have their own enforcement militias to maintain such hegemony. This scenario has been explored in other anarchist’s readings extensively since the 1980s (or earlier). The problem, of course, is that such a transition of power takes time. Powerful authoritarian governments definitely can stop people from using Bitcoin. At least right now in China, it is difficult to do BTC / CNY pair (yes, there are black markets, but the depth is limited as any black markets). There are two ways: 1. damaging the network by deep packet inspections to avoid consensus from converging. China had many successes with GFW on this. 2. jail people who do P2P exchanges (usually with anti-money laundary cover) by claiming the CNY they end-up getting are tainted (from criminal activities). There are reports on this in mainland China already.

Geee 5y ago
It's just simple game theory. People will choose to use the hardest money in a free market, and so will governments. It'll benefit everyone in the end. There's a reason why nation states adopted the gold standard, and bitcoin is following the same trajectory. Governments that ban it, will be left behind. It has almost nothing to do with anarchism, other than restricting the power of governments, and fostering collaboration instead of coercion. It'll return responsibility to governments. There could be an anarchist shadow economy, if governments banned Bitcoin, but I'm not talking about that. It makes economic sense for governments to adopt bitcoin instead of fighting it. In democratic countries, there's no way to legislate the banning of bitcoin.

by liuliu 5y ago

Geee 5y ago

It's just simple game theory. People will choose to use the hardest money in a free market, and so will governments. It'll benefit everyone in the end. There's a reason why nation states adopted the gold standard, and bitcoin is following the same trajectory. Governments that ban it, will be left behind. It has almost nothing to do with anarchism, other than restricting the power of governments, and fostering collaboration instead of coercion. It'll return responsibility to governments. There could be an anarchist shadow economy, if governments banned Bitcoin, but I'm not talking about that. It makes economic sense for governments to adopt bitcoin instead of fighting it. In democratic countries, there's no way to legislate the banning of bitcoin.