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I feel exactly the opposite- “At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when banking will really collapse.” The news every day sends the mess

I feel exactly the opposite- “At some point there won't be any more suckers left. That's when banking will really collapse.” The news every day sends the message more urgently that a global hard money that can never be debased by money printing and that is free from the whims of governments and dictators is sorely needed.

rini17 4y ago
But for that, general population to be able (and willing!) to manage secret keys properly is sorely needed.
- misnome 4y ago
  This is never going to happen, and nor should it. Any system that you can lose your entire life savings without any recourse by forgetting, revealing, or being hit by a wrench, for one number - is irreparably flawed and extremely unsuitable.
- G3rn0ti 4y ago
  Yes, handling private keys is very inconvenient. I also can’t imagine my mother (although rather tech-savy for her age) handling all her financials with crypto wallets. However, one of the next Ethereum upgrades (ERC-4337) will make it possible to safely recover wallets without a key seed phrase. Its implications seems to be huge but I am not deep enough into it to explain how exactly it is going to work. Perhaps somebody more competent than me can elaborate on that. https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/ https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/
  - lxgr 4y ago
    You can't eat your cake and have it too: Either you are the only party controlling access to your accounts – which then necessarily includes the possibility of losing everything – or you don't, in which case somebody else does. This isn't a tradeoff unique to cryptocurrencies: Cash works exactly the same way (qualitatively, if not quantitatively, in terms of the risks of losing access to it) – if you store your life savings under your mattress, they can be stolen easily or burn down together with your apartment.
Robotbeat 4y ago
Money is fundamentally community based. It is based on exchange with your neighbors and colleagues and peers and anyone you do business with. You’re not getting away from the entity representing that community from exerting some control over it. Precious materials like gold are probably the best you can get as the material itself has some value.
- nailer 4y ago
  Why do precious metals have value?
  - wycliffb 4y ago
    They are precious
  - mrkstu 4y ago
    They (i.e. materials like gold/silver) have inherent value as being relatively difficult to obtain without significant work and being useful in creating valuable objects. Because of those properties they become a store of value (representing the work and rarity) which then makes them a useful proxy for trading that value, which increases their rarity/value by taking it out of circulation when used as a store of value.
    - Robotbeat 4y ago
      Still, it should be said the vast majority of the value of gold is contextual. Just like aluminum before we perfected ability to make it cheaply.
    - codedokode 4y ago
      Can we conclude that gold is similar to cryptocurrency because of this?
      - mrkstu 4y ago
        As a store of work, sure, The difference being the currency in this case has no inherent value to fall back upon.
rchaud 4y ago
Interesting how these incorruptible currencies are always valued in terms of its debased fiat siblings.
surgical_fire 4y ago
> debased by money printing Why is this a bad thing? This is repeated by the crypto people as some kind of root of all evil, and it puzzles me. I see monetary policy - including the ability of devaluing a currency - as a powerful tool central banks have to keep the economy working. I fail to see how "hard money", which normally comes peppered with some vague desire for a deflationary economy as desirable. In my view this would very quickly turn into an intolerable distopia.
- Mistletoe 4y ago
  https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE Does this seem normal to you? Imagine you are a patient and you took data like this to your doctor. Would he say you are healthy after having such a gradual rise all your life and then complete chaos? If things have been going great the past few years I’d say maybe it doesn’t matter, but things don’t seem to be going great for anyone except the wealthy (those by nature closest to the money printer). https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/charts-that-explain-wealth-inequality-in-the-united-states/ https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/charts-that-explai... >Since 2007, wealth has declined for all but the top 20%. Oddly (or not oddly) enough that’s when the monetary base graph starts skyrocketing.
  - surgical_fire 4y ago
    > Does this seem normal to you? Yes. Currency is a mean of exchange, nothing more. Economy is essentially how to satisfy the needs of its participants with the limited resources available. For the graph that you linked in a somewhat alarmist fashion to make sense, you need to compare it with a plethora of other information for it to make sense. What is the productivity of people and corporations? What are the level of imports and exports? What is the cost of living? How much in taxes did the government earn? How adequate are the expenses in infrastructure? What is the level of debt held by the public and private sectors? Is that debt sustainable? All those are just questions that I haphazardly put together while writing this reply, and they all tell other facets about the state of the economy that the money supply won't tell you. >>Since 2007, wealth has declined for all but the top 20%. >Oddly (or not oddly) enough that’s when the monetary base graph starts skyrocketing. A deflationary economy would massively widen wealth inequality, as it heavily favors capital holders (as money itself gets more expensive over time). A lot other things happened after 2007 that helped increase wealth inequality. I see the "skyrocketing" money supply as a side-effect of those things. Correlation does not mean causation.

rini17 4y ago

But for that, general population to be able (and willing!) to manage secret keys properly is sorely needed.

misnome 4y ago
This is never going to happen, and nor should it. Any system that you can lose your entire life savings without any recourse by forgetting, revealing, or being hit by a wrench, for one number - is irreparably flawed and extremely unsuitable.
G3rn0ti 4y ago
Yes, handling private keys is very inconvenient. I also can’t imagine my mother (although rather tech-savy for her age) handling all her financials with crypto wallets. However, one of the next Ethereum upgrades (ERC-4337) will make it possible to safely recover wallets without a key seed phrase. Its implications seems to be huge but I am not deep enough into it to explain how exactly it is going to work. Perhaps somebody more competent than me can elaborate on that. https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/ https://beincrypto.com/learn/erc-4337/
- lxgr 4y ago
  You can't eat your cake and have it too: Either you are the only party controlling access to your accounts – which then necessarily includes the possibility of losing everything – or you don't, in which case somebody else does. This isn't a tradeoff unique to cryptocurrencies: Cash works exactly the same way (qualitatively, if not quantitatively, in terms of the risks of losing access to it) – if you store your life savings under your mattress, they can be stolen easily or burn down together with your apartment.

Robotbeat 4y ago

Money is fundamentally community based. It is based on exchange with your neighbors and colleagues and peers and anyone you do business with. You’re not getting away from the entity representing that community from exerting some control over it. Precious materials like gold are probably the best you can get as the material itself has some value.

nailer 4y ago
Why do precious metals have value?
- wycliffb 4y ago
  They are precious
- mrkstu 4y ago
  They (i.e. materials like gold/silver) have inherent value as being relatively difficult to obtain without significant work and being useful in creating valuable objects. Because of those properties they become a store of value (representing the work and rarity) which then makes them a useful proxy for trading that value, which increases their rarity/value by taking it out of circulation when used as a store of value.
  - Robotbeat 4y ago
    Still, it should be said the vast majority of the value of gold is contextual. Just like aluminum before we perfected ability to make it cheaply.
  - codedokode 4y ago
    Can we conclude that gold is similar to cryptocurrency because of this?
    - mrkstu 4y ago
      As a store of work, sure, The difference being the currency in this case has no inherent value to fall back upon.

rchaud 4y ago

Interesting how these incorruptible currencies are always valued in terms of its debased fiat siblings.

surgical_fire 4y ago

> debased by money printing Why is this a bad thing? This is repeated by the crypto people as some kind of root of all evil, and it puzzles me. I see monetary policy - including the ability of devaluing a currency - as a powerful tool central banks have to keep the economy working. I fail to see how "hard money", which normally comes peppered with some vague desire for a deflationary economy as desirable. In my view this would very quickly turn into an intolerable distopia.

Mistletoe 4y ago
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/BOGMBASE Does this seem normal to you? Imagine you are a patient and you took data like this to your doctor. Would he say you are healthy after having such a gradual rise all your life and then complete chaos? If things have been going great the past few years I’d say maybe it doesn’t matter, but things don’t seem to be going great for anyone except the wealthy (those by nature closest to the money printer). https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/charts-that-explain-wealth-inequality-in-the-united-states/ https://www.aspeninstitute.org/blog-posts/charts-that-explai... >Since 2007, wealth has declined for all but the top 20%. Oddly (or not oddly) enough that’s when the monetary base graph starts skyrocketing.
- surgical_fire 4y ago
  > Does this seem normal to you? Yes. Currency is a mean of exchange, nothing more. Economy is essentially how to satisfy the needs of its participants with the limited resources available. For the graph that you linked in a somewhat alarmist fashion to make sense, you need to compare it with a plethora of other information for it to make sense. What is the productivity of people and corporations? What are the level of imports and exports? What is the cost of living? How much in taxes did the government earn? How adequate are the expenses in infrastructure? What is the level of debt held by the public and private sectors? Is that debt sustainable? All those are just questions that I haphazardly put together while writing this reply, and they all tell other facets about the state of the economy that the money supply won't tell you. >>Since 2007, wealth has declined for all but the top 20%. >Oddly (or not oddly) enough that’s when the monetary base graph starts skyrocketing. A deflationary economy would massively widen wealth inequality, as it heavily favors capital holders (as money itself gets more expensive over time). A lot other things happened after 2007 that helped increase wealth inequality. I see the "skyrocketing" money supply as a side-effect of those things. Correlation does not mean causation.