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Not really. The idea is to cut all middlemen and controlling entities. Quote from Satoshi: "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that'

by Geee 5y ago

Not really. The idea is to cut all middlemen and controlling entities. Quote from Satoshi: "The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make micropayments impossible. A generation ago, multi-user time-sharing computer systems had a similar problem. Before strong encryption, users had to rely on password protection to secure their files, placing trust in the system administrator to keep their information private. Privacy could always be overridden by the admin based on his judgment call weighing the principle of privacy against other concerns, or at the behest of his superiors. Then strong encryption became available to the masses, and trust was no longer required. Data could be secured in a way that was physically impossible for others to access, no matter for what reason, no matter how good the excuse, no matter what. It's time we had the same thing for money. With e-currency based on cryptographic proof, without the need to trust a third party middleman, money can be secure and transactions effortless. " Source: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-sour...

inter_netuser 5y ago
"The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency" "not to debase" hard money?
- Geee 5y ago
  Yes, bitcoin is predictably hard money.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Which history has shown us is bad. But by all means let’s re-learn our lessons the hard way.
    - javert 5y ago
      No, because there were other variables with the banking crises that occurred in the gold era (which, incidentally, was nonetheless the greatest era of economic growth in human history). You cannot simply extrapolate directly from that era to today in the way you are trying to. The situation is different. Anyway, why do you want to defend dishonest money that funds generational theft and international unjust war? Like, the banking crises of the gold era are MUCH better than the massive evils perpetrated by the modern US federal government. Why are you defending that? What solution do you propose to ending US money hegemony over the world? Or do you support that? I mean, are you like, F those children in the middle east, let's send more of our boys to be cannon fodder, etc.? Do you LIKE letting the big banks steal the country's wealth?
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        > Anyway, why do you want to defend dishonest money that funds generational theft and international unjust war? Like, the banking crises of the gold era are MUCH better than the massive evils perpetrated by the modern US federal government. Why are you defending that? What solution do you propose if not hard money? Uh because it doesn't. That's tinfoil hat conspiracy talk. > What solution do you propose if not hard money? There really isn't anything wrong with fiat lol. You obtain it, you spend it on necessities, you invest the excess. Inflation is an incentive to productively allocate capital. The variable supply allows an expansion and contraction of the supply to retain stability. It's backed fully by demand. The system works just fine lol.
        javert 5y ago
        You haven't intellectually engaged with anything I said, you've just called it a "conspiracy" and tried to laugh at it. That's says a lot. You totally ignored the essential point of my post which is that many things have changed since the gold money era and you can't extrapolate directly from that era to this. In particular, we have instant communication and much better ways to verify institutional financials. (I'm leaving the conversation now. I know you'll do your best to make it look like I'm wrong, but I'm going to ignore it.)
  - lottin 5y ago
    How can an imaginary asset be hard money?
    - Geee 5y ago
      Hard money is money that is hard to produce. Such as gold, silver and bitcoin. The alternative is money that can be produced easily (soft money, easy money), like modern fiat currency or glass beads, which were used to buy slaves from Africa.
      - lottin 5y ago
        They used glass beads to buy slaves from Africa? Interesting... although I don't know why feel the need to bring this up. Anyway, most bitcoins in existence today were produced on a laptop so I don't know about hard to produce.
javert 5y ago
I don't agree with your interpretation of what this passage really means, i.e., what its message implies and what is essential vs. accidental. The Fed is the ultimate "middleman." Anyway, I do not think the philosophical underpinnings of bitcoin are reducible to Satoshi's words. Even if it were, that would not be interesting to talk about. I don't want to have a pedantic conversation like this. There is a higher authority than Satoshi on what bitcoin is about, and that higher authority is the truth about what bitcoin is and is not good for. And that has been the case since day 1. Nobody who got involved in bitcoin early on professed any allegiance to Satoshi or "his" vision (or even worse, certain paragraphs in the whitepaper...). Bitcoiners' allegiance is to the best possible thing that bitcoin can be. Which means thinking primarily about root causes and fundamentals, not primarily about paying for coffee.
jollybean 5y ago
"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The statement implies a lack of understanding of what currency is. Currency is inherently a social construct, and there is no 'avoiding it' because that's 'what it is'. We could try to avoid it by having for example very 'hard money'. We could just use Gold to back all currency. This wouldn't work in normal conditions, almost assuredly leading to deflationary spirals, but given that a total lack of monetary policy, and a 100% chance of a 'Black Swan' event, which happen every 10 years or so ... the first crisis would wipe out the economy. The 2008 crisis and COVID would have knocked all the dominos down. (Yes, there are good arguments that there would have been less risk in 2008 with better currency, but the conditions still remain). Of course, on the other end of the spectrum - you have 'abuse of monetary policy' which is bad, which is what Crypto would like to get rid of, but I'm afraid there's very little opportunity there. "It's time we had the same thing for money." No - this is a missatribution of the problem. For the same reason that BTC very quickly stopped being a currency and became 'kind of a store of value' (really just speculation), you can see the issue is not 'trust'. As people begin to speculate and as it increases in value, businesses cannot use it as a currency, and, people are likely to hoard it. So if we want a 'better currency' what we need is a 'better monetary policy'. Unfortunately, that part is fairly entrenched. Because currency is so intertwined with the nature of the economy, it's hard to separate. Alternatively - you could develop an 'easily tradable asset' that is backed by other assets, like property, but that would still require centralization. Or you could start your own economy, and use a kind of Seigneurage and export the currency, allow other nations to use it, but again, requires trust. BTC was a nice experiment but it's not going to work for reasons that are fairly predictable and obvious to people on the finance side of the fence.
- Geee 5y ago
  I'll just answer with another Satoshi quote: "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."

by Geee 5y ago

inter_netuser 5y ago

"The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency" "not to debase" hard money?

Geee 5y ago
Yes, bitcoin is predictably hard money.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Which history has shown us is bad. But by all means let’s re-learn our lessons the hard way.
  - javert 5y ago
    No, because there were other variables with the banking crises that occurred in the gold era (which, incidentally, was nonetheless the greatest era of economic growth in human history). You cannot simply extrapolate directly from that era to today in the way you are trying to. The situation is different. Anyway, why do you want to defend dishonest money that funds generational theft and international unjust war? Like, the banking crises of the gold era are MUCH better than the massive evils perpetrated by the modern US federal government. Why are you defending that? What solution do you propose to ending US money hegemony over the world? Or do you support that? I mean, are you like, F those children in the middle east, let's send more of our boys to be cannon fodder, etc.? Do you LIKE letting the big banks steal the country's wealth?
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      > Anyway, why do you want to defend dishonest money that funds generational theft and international unjust war? Like, the banking crises of the gold era are MUCH better than the massive evils perpetrated by the modern US federal government. Why are you defending that? What solution do you propose if not hard money? Uh because it doesn't. That's tinfoil hat conspiracy talk. > What solution do you propose if not hard money? There really isn't anything wrong with fiat lol. You obtain it, you spend it on necessities, you invest the excess. Inflation is an incentive to productively allocate capital. The variable supply allows an expansion and contraction of the supply to retain stability. It's backed fully by demand. The system works just fine lol.
      - javert 5y ago
        You haven't intellectually engaged with anything I said, you've just called it a "conspiracy" and tried to laugh at it. That's says a lot. You totally ignored the essential point of my post which is that many things have changed since the gold money era and you can't extrapolate directly from that era to this. In particular, we have instant communication and much better ways to verify institutional financials. (I'm leaving the conversation now. I know you'll do your best to make it look like I'm wrong, but I'm going to ignore it.)
- lottin 5y ago
  How can an imaginary asset be hard money?
  - Geee 5y ago
    Hard money is money that is hard to produce. Such as gold, silver and bitcoin. The alternative is money that can be produced easily (soft money, easy money), like modern fiat currency or glass beads, which were used to buy slaves from Africa.
    - lottin 5y ago
      They used glass beads to buy slaves from Africa? Interesting... although I don't know why feel the need to bring this up. Anyway, most bitcoins in existence today were produced on a laptop so I don't know about hard to produce.

javert 5y ago

I don't agree with your interpretation of what this passage really means, i.e., what its message implies and what is essential vs. accidental. The Fed is the ultimate "middleman." Anyway, I do not think the philosophical underpinnings of bitcoin are reducible to Satoshi's words. Even if it were, that would not be interesting to talk about. I don't want to have a pedantic conversation like this. There is a higher authority than Satoshi on what bitcoin is about, and that higher authority is the truth about what bitcoin is and is not good for. And that has been the case since day 1. Nobody who got involved in bitcoin early on professed any allegiance to Satoshi or "his" vision (or even worse, certain paragraphs in the whitepaper...). Bitcoiners' allegiance is to the best possible thing that bitcoin can be. Which means thinking primarily about root causes and fundamentals, not primarily about paying for coffee.

jollybean 5y ago

"The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that's required to make it work. The statement implies a lack of understanding of what currency is. Currency is inherently a social construct, and there is no 'avoiding it' because that's 'what it is'. We could try to avoid it by having for example very 'hard money'. We could just use Gold to back all currency. This wouldn't work in normal conditions, almost assuredly leading to deflationary spirals, but given that a total lack of monetary policy, and a 100% chance of a 'Black Swan' event, which happen every 10 years or so ... the first crisis would wipe out the economy. The 2008 crisis and COVID would have knocked all the dominos down. (Yes, there are good arguments that there would have been less risk in 2008 with better currency, but the conditions still remain). Of course, on the other end of the spectrum - you have 'abuse of monetary policy' which is bad, which is what Crypto would like to get rid of, but I'm afraid there's very little opportunity there. "It's time we had the same thing for money." No - this is a missatribution of the problem. For the same reason that BTC very quickly stopped being a currency and became 'kind of a store of value' (really just speculation), you can see the issue is not 'trust'. As people begin to speculate and as it increases in value, businesses cannot use it as a currency, and, people are likely to hoard it. So if we want a 'better currency' what we need is a 'better monetary policy'. Unfortunately, that part is fairly entrenched. Because currency is so intertwined with the nature of the economy, it's hard to separate. Alternatively - you could develop an 'easily tradable asset' that is backed by other assets, like property, but that would still require centralization. Or you could start your own economy, and use a kind of Seigneurage and export the currency, allow other nations to use it, but again, requires trust. BTC was a nice experiment but it's not going to work for reasons that are fairly predictable and obvious to people on the finance side of the fence.

Geee 5y ago
I'll just answer with another Satoshi quote: "If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry."