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> Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. You may dislike the way central banks control and manipulate the money supply, but the reality i

> Lastly, we reserve the right to manipulate the money supply. You may dislike the way central banks control and manipulate the money supply, but the reality is that an unmanaged currency is generally a disaster for everyone. To fulfill its role as a stable store of value, a currency has to be managed. The notion that an inherently deflationary unit of accounting (such as Bitcoin), or a completely unmanaged one, or one subject to "management" only through crowd action (as in true Defi) can achieve this is delusional.

jcbrand 4y ago
- Seriomino 4y ago
  And Bitcoin automagically fixes that? How? Due to it being a PoW system? Suddenly fraud is no longer possible? (It still is) Money laundering is no longer possible? (It still is) Inflation/Deflation save? (It still is) So tell me, what is crypto fixing? That instead of experts in the central bank the market itself just does what? Definitely nothing pro consumer. There are reasons why banks get requirements from the state on how they need to run and it's most of the time for us consumer/small people.
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    In the least Bitcoin provides an option to opt-out, an alternative that puts some pressure on central banks to have sane monetary policy. It allows people in Lebanon (~200% inflation), Zimbabwe (~700% inflation) and Turkey (70% inflation) to maintain the purchasing power of their wealth and to protect it from confiscation. There are many other advantages of Bitcoin, but these are already significant.
    - pjc50 4y ago
      However it can't protect against real falls in the purchasing power of bitcoin vs the currency it's commonly transacted against, the dollar. I'm starting to think there's a good argument for the US treasury trying to export financial stability by making USD holdable globally. Except that runs into the policy problems relating to who's using it.
    - Seriomino 4y ago
      They also can just buy euro or dollar. Nothing new here. And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. And I still bet that the people in Zimbabwe in avg have more from less co2 than from bitcoin
      - jcbrand 4y ago
        > And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. Impoverishing entire nations by making sure they can't buy necessary goods and thereby putting them at risk of starvation is more important than other nations who are impoverished and at risk of starvation due to their currencies collapsing.
        Seriomino 4y ago
        They are not collapsing just for fun without a reason. The normal people of that country are btw not able to just buy crypto. After all someone still needs to take their money to exchange it and they need hardware and knowledge. You sound like crypto would just solve those issues just because it's there.
        jcbrand 4y ago
        > need hardware You mean a cellphone? Which pretty much everyone in the world has?
        Seriomino 4y ago
        Zimbabwe apparently has 50% smartphones. Btw. You should read up more on how well Bitcoin works in El Salvador. And of course all the other points I brought up are still valid as well.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    I agree with the other poster. However, the assertion that modern central banks have been a failure and disaster for the societies they serve is independent from any conclusions about Bitcoin.
- politician 4y ago
  Bitcoin is a managed monetary system whose policy lever is hash rate.
  - jcbrand 4y ago
    The hash rate doesn't change the rate of currency issuance, at most what it can do is change the rate at which transactions are verified.
    - vzcx 4y ago
      It can't even do that for long, as the difficulty adjusts downward to compensate.
UncleEntity 4y ago
> To fulfill its role as a stable store of value, a currency has to be managed. But they don’t optimize for “stable store of value” over “full employment” or “hidden taxation through monetary inflation”. In fact, they have the opposite goal because “the velocity of money” is negatively influenced by people using money as a store of value. Keeping money in a savings account and collecting interest is bad for society because reasons.
- walnutclosefarm 4y ago
  Managing to a limited inflation that is close to the actual growth in the economy supporting a fiat currency, is managing the currency so that it represents a stable store of value. Managing for full employment is probably a cofactor in stability, although a less direct corollary than managing inflation.
bko 4y ago
The hard money standard (e.g. precious metals) is older and has outlived nearly all fiat currencies and will likely outlive the existing currencies. What do you think will be worth more in 100 years from now? 1 US dollar or the equivalent of gold? How about 500 years? 1000 years? My money is on the gold. Every fiat will be stable until it blows up. It will necessarily be mismanaged in a long enough time line, and based on history it really isn't that long.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  I really don't get this line of thought. There's nothing "special" about precious metals in this regard and they only have value as long as people agree they have value. If we found an asteroid rich in gold and managed to capture it, would gold still hold its value? How is gold different than other rare earth metals with a (currently) limited exploitable supply like neodymium? The only limits on the gold supply are technological ones. If one takes an optimistic view of the future where we become a space-faring species the future supply of gold is effectively unlimited. Edit: As much as I'm a huge crypto detractor, at least Bitcoin's supply is limited mathematically, not just circumstantially. I would argue this is a bad thing, but if you're looking for something that will hold its value due to scarcity a durable commodity we dig out of the ground seems like a bad long-term bet. What if we discover a massive gold deposit?
  - bko 4y ago
    > The only limits on the gold supply are technological ones Right, there's nothing special about it besides the technical limitations. But what's the alternative? With fiat you still have those technical limitations (someone could create indistinguishable counterfeit money and dump it on the market). But there's also the political risk. Someone can get power at the Fed and decide to double the money supply over night. In fact, this has happened time and time again with many fiat currencies so its not exactly an unfounded risk. That's why the precious metal standard is lower risk for arbitrary manipulation
    - AlexandrB 4y ago
photochemsyn 4y ago
I recall looking into plans from the 1970s to peg all central bank currencies into a 'basket of currencies' to avoid things like currency collapse. It would require international goodwill and cooperation, and would eliminate a lot of currency speculation games, so it was kiboshed. Basically it was a mechanism to eliminate volatility and to stabilize the global monetary system. Maybe someone else knows more about it.
- Sargos 4y ago
  This was called Bancor and was proposed by John Maynard Keynes at Breton Woods. It was the major idea competing against the US pushing the dollar as the core of the monetary system and the US had all of the power at the time so that's why we're stuck with the USD now. It's actually a pretty interesting story and Planet Money covered it. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526051566 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526051566

jcbrand 4y ago

Seriomino 4y ago
And Bitcoin automagically fixes that? How? Due to it being a PoW system? Suddenly fraud is no longer possible? (It still is) Money laundering is no longer possible? (It still is) Inflation/Deflation save? (It still is) So tell me, what is crypto fixing? That instead of experts in the central bank the market itself just does what? Definitely nothing pro consumer. There are reasons why banks get requirements from the state on how they need to run and it's most of the time for us consumer/small people.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  In the least Bitcoin provides an option to opt-out, an alternative that puts some pressure on central banks to have sane monetary policy. It allows people in Lebanon (~200% inflation), Zimbabwe (~700% inflation) and Turkey (70% inflation) to maintain the purchasing power of their wealth and to protect it from confiscation. There are many other advantages of Bitcoin, but these are already significant.
  - pjc50 4y ago
    However it can't protect against real falls in the purchasing power of bitcoin vs the currency it's commonly transacted against, the dollar. I'm starting to think there's a good argument for the US treasury trying to export financial stability by making USD holdable globally. Except that runs into the policy problems relating to who's using it.
  - Seriomino 4y ago
    They also can just buy euro or dollar. Nothing new here. And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. And I still bet that the people in Zimbabwe in avg have more from less co2 than from bitcoin
    - jcbrand 4y ago
      > And yes sanctions against north Korea or Russia are more important than the inflation of Lebanon, Zimbabwe or Turkey. Impoverishing entire nations by making sure they can't buy necessary goods and thereby putting them at risk of starvation is more important than other nations who are impoverished and at risk of starvation due to their currencies collapsing.
      - Seriomino 4y ago
        They are not collapsing just for fun without a reason. The normal people of that country are btw not able to just buy crypto. After all someone still needs to take their money to exchange it and they need hardware and knowledge. You sound like crypto would just solve those issues just because it's there.
        jcbrand 4y ago
        > need hardware You mean a cellphone? Which pretty much everyone in the world has?
        Seriomino 4y ago
        Zimbabwe apparently has 50% smartphones. Btw. You should read up more on how well Bitcoin works in El Salvador. And of course all the other points I brought up are still valid as well.
- boppo1 4y ago
  I agree with the other poster. However, the assertion that modern central banks have been a failure and disaster for the societies they serve is independent from any conclusions about Bitcoin.
politician 4y ago
Bitcoin is a managed monetary system whose policy lever is hash rate.
- jcbrand 4y ago
  The hash rate doesn't change the rate of currency issuance, at most what it can do is change the rate at which transactions are verified.
  - vzcx 4y ago
    It can't even do that for long, as the difficulty adjusts downward to compensate.

UncleEntity 4y ago

> To fulfill its role as a stable store of value, a currency has to be managed. But they don’t optimize for “stable store of value” over “full employment” or “hidden taxation through monetary inflation”. In fact, they have the opposite goal because “the velocity of money” is negatively influenced by people using money as a store of value. Keeping money in a savings account and collecting interest is bad for society because reasons.

walnutclosefarm 4y ago
Managing to a limited inflation that is close to the actual growth in the economy supporting a fiat currency, is managing the currency so that it represents a stable store of value. Managing for full employment is probably a cofactor in stability, although a less direct corollary than managing inflation.

bko 4y ago

The hard money standard (e.g. precious metals) is older and has outlived nearly all fiat currencies and will likely outlive the existing currencies. What do you think will be worth more in 100 years from now? 1 US dollar or the equivalent of gold? How about 500 years? 1000 years? My money is on the gold. Every fiat will be stable until it blows up. It will necessarily be mismanaged in a long enough time line, and based on history it really isn't that long.

AlexandrB 4y ago
I really don't get this line of thought. There's nothing "special" about precious metals in this regard and they only have value as long as people agree they have value. If we found an asteroid rich in gold and managed to capture it, would gold still hold its value? How is gold different than other rare earth metals with a (currently) limited exploitable supply like neodymium? The only limits on the gold supply are technological ones. If one takes an optimistic view of the future where we become a space-faring species the future supply of gold is effectively unlimited. Edit: As much as I'm a huge crypto detractor, at least Bitcoin's supply is limited mathematically, not just circumstantially. I would argue this is a bad thing, but if you're looking for something that will hold its value due to scarcity a durable commodity we dig out of the ground seems like a bad long-term bet. What if we discover a massive gold deposit?
- bko 4y ago
  > The only limits on the gold supply are technological ones Right, there's nothing special about it besides the technical limitations. But what's the alternative? With fiat you still have those technical limitations (someone could create indistinguishable counterfeit money and dump it on the market). But there's also the political risk. Someone can get power at the Fed and decide to double the money supply over night. In fact, this has happened time and time again with many fiat currencies so its not exactly an unfounded risk. That's why the precious metal standard is lower risk for arbitrary manipulation
  - AlexandrB 4y ago

photochemsyn 4y ago

I recall looking into plans from the 1970s to peg all central bank currencies into a 'basket of currencies' to avoid things like currency collapse. It would require international goodwill and cooperation, and would eliminate a lot of currency speculation games, so it was kiboshed. Basically it was a mechanism to eliminate volatility and to stabilize the global monetary system. Maybe someone else knows more about it.

Sargos 4y ago
This was called Bancor and was proposed by John Maynard Keynes at Breton Woods. It was the major idea competing against the US pushing the dollar as the core of the monetary system and the US had all of the power at the time so that's why we're stuck with the USD now. It's actually a pretty interesting story and Planet Money covered it. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526051566 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526051566