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Opinions on a crypto reserve aside, we seize tons of cryptocurrency every year in police actions and then auction it off. Just stop auctioning it off and you do
by healsdata 2y ago
Opinions on a crypto reserve aside, we seize tons of cryptocurrency every year in police actions and then auction it off. Just stop auctioning it off and you don't need to buy anything.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoYeah but that wouldn't do what this is actually designed to do: enrich the people who financially backed the Republican ticket. The fuck are we going to even do with reserve crypto? I'm not even on the crypto bit here, the point of strategic reserves is to have stock for emergencies. What fucking emergency can someone possibly imagine that would be resolved with a pile of ETH?
- harry8 2y agoSell it to prop up the dollar and/or pay down debt, same as gold reserves. Whether crypto is a good idea for that purpose is a matter of opinion. I lean toward no. Strongly. Make the case either way and it can be a sensible discussion.
- red-iron-pine 2y agoin that case why not sell it immediately, turn it into real money, and then spend it immediately? why keep it as a "reserve" at all? what's the point of having a "reserve" in magical internet money if it can fluctuate by 50%? that's not a reserve, that's gambling. it's a non-starter of an idea. Trump wants it to launder money.
- MR4D 2y agoSo, I was in a conversation with someone who made an interesting comment. He said we have a gold reserve and that makes sense, but if we become interplanetary, then you don’t want to pay to ship gold to Mars. Crypto solves that issue. The reserve will last well into the future so preparing now makes sense. Unique take to be sure, but sharing because it was interesting.
- Sanzig 2y agoHaving gold-equivalent reserves seems like the very last thing that Martian colonists need to worry about. I would suspect "how do we survive in an extraordinarily hostile environment with no hope of rescue when something goes wrong" is a higher priority one to solve.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoSee, I want to agree with you, but at the same time we are actively burning our only habitable planet because the rich refuse to give up any money. So I guess, if we only send poor people to live on Mars, this will probably hold? But if there's one rich guy up there he'll probably kill every last person with him if you don't make sure he gets paid.
- quantified 2y agoHow will the colonists pay for their oxygen? This colony will not be cheap, they'll be expected to earn.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoThis level of thinking is exactly why we're so far away manned exploration of the solar system. Early colonists absolutely cannot treat these missions as business expenses.
- quantified 2y agoEvery colony is expected to earn, this is the history of colonialization. For Mars colonization, I was also speaking to the nature of its backers.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoWhen your colpny's line of support is a bubble om your head and a single sensitive means of transport, you don't want people thinking in terms of monetization. We can save taxation for the 24th century if and when we manage to terraform mars and make planatery transport not cost trillions of dollars. But yes, I agree with you on the backers. That's precisely why I don't think they will be the ones landing Mars.
- bigyabai 2y agoAlong this line, we might as well set up a national cocaine reserve too.
- _imnothere 2y agoThe slippery slope fallacy is a logical error where it is claimed that a relatively small first step will lead to a chain of events resulting in a significant and undesirable outcome, without sufficient evidence to support that claim. This type of argument often exaggerates potential consequences to instill fear or discourage a particular action.
- bigyabai 2y agoI must have missed the memo, is cryptocurrency not being used to facilitate the illegal pornography and narcotics trade? Would be news to me.
- grandempire 2y ago[flagged]
- zdw 2y agoThe ratio of legal vs illegal transaction volume of USD is weighted overwhelmingly toward legal. The same ratio for cryptocurrency transactions is... most definitely not.
- tavavex 2y agoI don't particularly like crypto (mainly due to inefficiencies being common and it being a breeding ground for all sorts of grifters), but this argument doesn't convince me. Like... what ratio of legal-to-illegal transactions is permissible until you say "no, this is wrong, you can't use it even legally" or argue against it in a "only criminals use this, and you're not a criminal, are you?" way? If we followed the same chain of reasoning, we can still easily apply it to real money. Cash, especially nowadays, is probably far more likely to be used for illegal transactions than electronic transactions. It's hard or impossible to trace, it can be laundered far more easily, it's easier to cook the books or hide illegal transactions with cash. Does this mean we should move towards banning it, as our society becomes more anchored to digital banking and the ratio of illegality keeps growing?
- unethical_ban 2y agoLet us not give the government a higher incentive to use the legal system to enrich themselves.
- JKCalhoun 2y agoA distinction without a difference. We're still out actual cash and sitting on magic internet money.
- nonethewiser 2y agoThe difference is it's not using tax money. Using tax money is the entire premise for calling it "brazen corruption": >Trump plans to use your money to buy fake money Not true if it's confiscated funds.
- lavezzi 2y ago> The difference is it's not using tax money. Using tax money is the entire premise for calling it "brazen corruption". Maybe in this article, but the real corruption is in the insider trading.
- yencabulator 2y agoThat's still taking a source of government funding (the money gained by auction) and boosting cryptobro gambling with it.