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Governments can either get onboard, and come up with a reasonable, practical regulatory environment, or alternatively they will be left behind and Crypto will e

Governments can either get onboard, and come up with a reasonable, practical regulatory environment, or alternatively they will be left behind and Crypto will evolve to circumvent their wishes. It is a shame but the USA may end up leapfrogging the EU in the same way they have done with other innovations, like Social Media, Self Driving Cars, and other cutting edge tech. It turns out regulating entire sectors of the economy out of existence has consequences.

user-the-name 5y ago
Governments have no interest in being "ahead" in enabling fraud, crime and tax evasion.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  You have a lot of trust in people. There are plenty of politicians with financial crime convictions and organised crime ties.
  - rad_gruchalski 5y ago
    Cough… wirecard… cough.
  - danaris 5y ago
    Sure, but even looking at the most corrupt, they have little incentive to enable fraud, crime, and tax evasion by people they're not already in mutually beneficial arrangements with, and none to enable it for people who won't give them a cut. Do you want to give them a cut?
imtringued 5y ago
Cutting edge? The only special thing about Bitcoin is the blockchain which only matters when there is a shortage of trust. Bitcoin may force government to be more responsible because it can be used to circumvent capital controls or price controls. Any advantage other than trust that a public blockchain has can be replicated through a private blockchain. It's just software after all. Considering the monetary philosophy behind Bitcoin it is basically motivated by gold which is something we abandoned as a currency because we know it doesn't work and doesn't make sense. It's akin to having shares in the global economy. If you own 1% of the economy in 1930 then you will also own 1% of the economy in 2021. You're just a deadweight leeching off the economy. Since your share is fixed but the economy growing you are getting richer at the expense of other people. More and more people start investing "into money" and then quit working. You get a bust or recession or depression when people consider money a superior investment over actual work. Thus the economies' size is limited by the quantity of shares. If you issue new shares people will immediately start working for them even if it is at the cost of diluting them. You can clearly see it happening with the block reward. Bitcoin miners work like crazy, consuming an absurd amount of energy. The same applies to gold.
- randomopining 5y ago
  Good comparison. What if Bitcoin continues as it is, which is a way to preserve a part of wealth in a semi-liquid way. Once it hits an equilibrium point, it doesn't go any higher due to the limit in it's liquidity.
- Sevii 5y ago
  Considering that trust in government is at an all time low public blockchains provide some much needed openness. The reason we went off the gold standard is because the US government printed off more money than they had gold and then got caught. Instead of trying to make up for their crime the government decided to ban ownership of gold. Cryptocurrency doesn't have a deflationary restriction. If bitcoin is too similar to gold, people will just use some other coin.
  - sennight 5y ago
    The inflationary coin was tried more than once. I remember one that wasn't content with infinitely expanding the monetary base - it would delete balances at random, watching people try to defend the idea was hilarious.
elric 5y ago
And then what? Crypto will magically take over all government functions? Or will people be happy in a governmentless-society? Where hospitals and roads don't get built but at least there's "freedom"?
- dmantis 5y ago
  Maybe we should develop less taxes, try to charge everyone with fixed amount for gov services or move some expensive services to private ownership? Private hospitals based on private insurances will surely build themselves, I promise you that, that's a too highly profitable sector of economy not to invest if there is no competition from the government. There are like zero real reasons why person with 100k EUR income should pay more than 10k EUR income person living in the same city and consuming the same amount of public services. Current system is completely unjust and based on money redistribution (that's called robbery if that's is done by a mob without the gov id card). Free capital controls provided by crypto (i.e. ability to flawlessly move billions through the border without anyone's allowance) introduces unprecedented competition between govs for educated and rich citizens, which may lead to lower taxes, less regulations, more freedoms and less bureaucracy. That a good goal and incentive, don't you think?

user-the-name 5y ago

Governments have no interest in being "ahead" in enabling fraud, crime and tax evasion.

eurasiantiger 5y ago
You have a lot of trust in people. There are plenty of politicians with financial crime convictions and organised crime ties.
- rad_gruchalski 5y ago
  Cough… wirecard… cough.
- danaris 5y ago
  Sure, but even looking at the most corrupt, they have little incentive to enable fraud, crime, and tax evasion by people they're not already in mutually beneficial arrangements with, and none to enable it for people who won't give them a cut. Do you want to give them a cut?

imtringued 5y ago

Cutting edge? The only special thing about Bitcoin is the blockchain which only matters when there is a shortage of trust. Bitcoin may force government to be more responsible because it can be used to circumvent capital controls or price controls. Any advantage other than trust that a public blockchain has can be replicated through a private blockchain. It's just software after all. Considering the monetary philosophy behind Bitcoin it is basically motivated by gold which is something we abandoned as a currency because we know it doesn't work and doesn't make sense. It's akin to having shares in the global economy. If you own 1% of the economy in 1930 then you will also own 1% of the economy in 2021. You're just a deadweight leeching off the economy. Since your share is fixed but the economy growing you are getting richer at the expense of other people. More and more people start investing "into money" and then quit working. You get a bust or recession or depression when people consider money a superior investment over actual work. Thus the economies' size is limited by the quantity of shares. If you issue new shares people will immediately start working for them even if it is at the cost of diluting them. You can clearly see it happening with the block reward. Bitcoin miners work like crazy, consuming an absurd amount of energy. The same applies to gold.

randomopining 5y ago
Good comparison. What if Bitcoin continues as it is, which is a way to preserve a part of wealth in a semi-liquid way. Once it hits an equilibrium point, it doesn't go any higher due to the limit in it's liquidity.
Sevii 5y ago
Considering that trust in government is at an all time low public blockchains provide some much needed openness. The reason we went off the gold standard is because the US government printed off more money than they had gold and then got caught. Instead of trying to make up for their crime the government decided to ban ownership of gold. Cryptocurrency doesn't have a deflationary restriction. If bitcoin is too similar to gold, people will just use some other coin.
- sennight 5y ago
  The inflationary coin was tried more than once. I remember one that wasn't content with infinitely expanding the monetary base - it would delete balances at random, watching people try to defend the idea was hilarious.

elric 5y ago

And then what? Crypto will magically take over all government functions? Or will people be happy in a governmentless-society? Where hospitals and roads don't get built but at least there's "freedom"?

dmantis 5y ago
Maybe we should develop less taxes, try to charge everyone with fixed amount for gov services or move some expensive services to private ownership? Private hospitals based on private insurances will surely build themselves, I promise you that, that's a too highly profitable sector of economy not to invest if there is no competition from the government. There are like zero real reasons why person with 100k EUR income should pay more than 10k EUR income person living in the same city and consuming the same amount of public services. Current system is completely unjust and based on money redistribution (that's called robbery if that's is done by a mob without the gov id card). Free capital controls provided by crypto (i.e. ability to flawlessly move billions through the border without anyone's allowance) introduces unprecedented competition between govs for educated and rich citizens, which may lead to lower taxes, less regulations, more freedoms and less bureaucracy. That a good goal and incentive, don't you think?