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Sure, but banks can lock your account without the blockchain, so you're not enabling any new dystopian behavior here. And if you're worried that they can restri

Sure, but banks can lock your account without the blockchain, so you're not enabling any new dystopian behavior here. And if you're worried that they can restrict your transaction behavior, then don't hold that coin! Swap your money into a stablecoin that doesn't have spending allowlist logic encoded into the smart contract.

Yizahi 1y ago
Not even close. I can have a legal USD account in some Veishnoria country and Trump has almost zero influence on it (yeah, there are clearing banks involved at the US side, but all in all the whole scheme is mostly in semi-independent blocks). At the same time I can have there an account in EUR, or any other currency. All legal, all according to the Veishnoria andd international law. But resilient and not dependent on the flavor-of-the-day madness in the USA. But if it would be a token system, then ALL accounts in that token in ALL countries are fully under control of the USA central bank. Also currently all dollars, or yen, or yuan, are fully fungible. You can spend any single dollar on anything you want and in reverse any sold good/service acan be bought with any dollar in existence, they are the same. Now tokens are not like that, they are non-fungible and can (and will) be limited in multiple ways. For example you can have 1000 tokens in your account, but out of them only 200 can be spend on the "bad" goods like alcohol or gambling or whatever (on political opposition support, on different religion donation etc.). Or for example you have 1000 but they have an expiration date and will go to 0 in one calendar year, so that you won't save them. The possibilities are endless. In fact, all of that has been already tested in my Eastern Europe country (Ukraine). We had a pilot program of digital tokens. They required a separate account of course, they couldn't be converted o the regular digital money. Every tranche had an expiration date (for example first one was half a year, next one a year iirc). They could have been spent only on a specific list of goods defined by the government - in that pilot it was only approved entertainment like books, movies and also donations were allowed. I'm personally horrified by this very real and very close future prospect. Like that's not even some abstract Matrix or Cyberpunk level horror. It is here, it is almost deployed. EU is talking all the time about it. It is mind boggling to me how regular people aren't protesting this shit. Don't you all see the implications?
- scyclow 1y ago
  All valid concerns for the dystopian world we already live in, but crypto doesn't make any of this any more likely. You can make all the same arguments against existing bank accounts or credit cards. What's to stop Visa from spending more than $200 on "bad" products? At least stablecoins are managed by a smart contract, so you can see if that functionality even exists in the first place. If it doesn't then they can't add it in later. If it does, then you can swap you money for a stablecoin that doesn't have spending limits. Also, there's nothing stopping foreign banks from issuing their own stablecoins. Owning a US bank-issued stablecoin is like having an account with that bank. If you have a problem with that, then you can swap your balance for a EUR-backed stablecoin issued by a European bank. Or better yet, you could sell it for real USD or EUR.
  - Yizahi 1y ago
    Visa is a tiny little middleman compared to a Federal Reserve, however crazy that may sound. Visa is a) only one of similar middleman, b) it has no power over bank accounts or any other entity holding USD, it's only involved during a transaction. In fact, I could probably survive without touching Visa/MC for a long time (and without touching their Chinese or other alternatives). I can for example wire money from bank acc to bank acc directly and people can self organize to do that at scale and not involve a proxy. It's just won't be as convenient, no cards, no card terminals etc. There are multiple proto alternatives too, for example BLIK in Poland. EU has pretty robust bank system. All that text above is just underscore this - a future Fed owned token would be on a completely different level of control. Cross border control too. Regarding alternative token systems - a) outside of maybe 2-5 tokens all others won't be adopted and die out (unless enforced in a totalitarian way), b) the survivors will share the same traits, copied from one to another, after all they will be controlled by the same orgs - central banks. And finally - no, you won't be able to sell tokens to money. Only if the owner of all tokens (a central bank) will graciously allow it. For example in the pilot in my country it did not. Thinking logically - if token system is created to restrict freedoms and bring more control to the govt, why would that govt allow "exiting" this new system? Everyone who cares and all potential targets will sell this token and go back to using money. So of course any bridges will be either heavily restricted (for the inner circle, corrupt officials, oligarchs etc.) or won't be allowed at all from the start.

Yizahi 1y ago

Not even close. I can have a legal USD account in some Veishnoria country and Trump has almost zero influence on it (yeah, there are clearing banks involved at the US side, but all in all the whole scheme is mostly in semi-independent blocks). At the same time I can have there an account in EUR, or any other currency. All legal, all according to the Veishnoria andd international law. But resilient and not dependent on the flavor-of-the-day madness in the USA. But if it would be a token system, then ALL accounts in that token in ALL countries are fully under control of the USA central bank. Also currently all dollars, or yen, or yuan, are fully fungible. You can spend any single dollar on anything you want and in reverse any sold good/service acan be bought with any dollar in existence, they are the same. Now tokens are not like that, they are non-fungible and can (and will) be limited in multiple ways. For example you can have 1000 tokens in your account, but out of them only 200 can be spend on the "bad" goods like alcohol or gambling or whatever (on political opposition support, on different religion donation etc.). Or for example you have 1000 but they have an expiration date and will go to 0 in one calendar year, so that you won't save them. The possibilities are endless. In fact, all of that has been already tested in my Eastern Europe country (Ukraine). We had a pilot program of digital tokens. They required a separate account of course, they couldn't be converted o the regular digital money. Every tranche had an expiration date (for example first one was half a year, next one a year iirc). They could have been spent only on a specific list of goods defined by the government - in that pilot it was only approved entertainment like books, movies and also donations were allowed. I'm personally horrified by this very real and very close future prospect. Like that's not even some abstract Matrix or Cyberpunk level horror. It is here, it is almost deployed. EU is talking all the time about it. It is mind boggling to me how regular people aren't protesting this shit. Don't you all see the implications?

scyclow 1y ago
All valid concerns for the dystopian world we already live in, but crypto doesn't make any of this any more likely. You can make all the same arguments against existing bank accounts or credit cards. What's to stop Visa from spending more than $200 on "bad" products? At least stablecoins are managed by a smart contract, so you can see if that functionality even exists in the first place. If it doesn't then they can't add it in later. If it does, then you can swap you money for a stablecoin that doesn't have spending limits. Also, there's nothing stopping foreign banks from issuing their own stablecoins. Owning a US bank-issued stablecoin is like having an account with that bank. If you have a problem with that, then you can swap your balance for a EUR-backed stablecoin issued by a European bank. Or better yet, you could sell it for real USD or EUR.
- Yizahi 1y ago
  Visa is a tiny little middleman compared to a Federal Reserve, however crazy that may sound. Visa is a) only one of similar middleman, b) it has no power over bank accounts or any other entity holding USD, it's only involved during a transaction. In fact, I could probably survive without touching Visa/MC for a long time (and without touching their Chinese or other alternatives). I can for example wire money from bank acc to bank acc directly and people can self organize to do that at scale and not involve a proxy. It's just won't be as convenient, no cards, no card terminals etc. There are multiple proto alternatives too, for example BLIK in Poland. EU has pretty robust bank system. All that text above is just underscore this - a future Fed owned token would be on a completely different level of control. Cross border control too. Regarding alternative token systems - a) outside of maybe 2-5 tokens all others won't be adopted and die out (unless enforced in a totalitarian way), b) the survivors will share the same traits, copied from one to another, after all they will be controlled by the same orgs - central banks. And finally - no, you won't be able to sell tokens to money. Only if the owner of all tokens (a central bank) will graciously allow it. For example in the pilot in my country it did not. Thinking logically - if token system is created to restrict freedoms and bring more control to the govt, why would that govt allow "exiting" this new system? Everyone who cares and all potential targets will sell this token and go back to using money. So of course any bridges will be either heavily restricted (for the inner circle, corrupt officials, oligarchs etc.) or won't be allowed at all from the start.