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Interesting article overall, but: "it is inconceivable that Baidu would permit the acceptance of Bitcoins without first clearing the matter with Beijing author

by gbog 13y ago

Interesting article overall, but: "it is inconceivable that Baidu would permit the acceptance of Bitcoins without first clearing the matter with Beijing authorities" It do not seem to be what suggested Kaiser Kuo http://qr.ae/GsjwK http://qr.ae/GsjwK and it should be noted that Baidu is a bunch of small sized teams competing each other fiercly. Accepting Bitcoin could very well be decided locally, and the risk would be localized. Even if the higher instances in Baidu or higher have heard of it, they probably won't have endorsed it officially and will be able to say they didn't know. I would be extremely surprised if the Chinese government would be very open-minded with bitcoins and would suspect an hidden agenda behind. Why? Because from all what we know of Bitcoin and its use, it allows bypassing a lot of controls, and even threaten directly the life and blood of any government on Earth: the taxes.

adventured 13y ago
Bitcoin doesn't threaten taxes at all. It would be like suggesting that taxes didn't work in the age of cash transactions (eg for the first 200 years of US history). Primarily it threatens fiat-based Keynesian economics by making it impossible to inflate away savings / wealth / standard of living as a means of government deficit financing. To the extent a government is dependent on devaluing their currency to remain afloat or otherwise pretend to be better off than they are (eg paying for entitlements with inflation), is the extent to which bitcoin would be a threat with wide-scale adoption.
- iSnow 13y ago
  As long as the Gov't has authority what asset it accepts for tax payments, legal tender as issued by the central bank is in no danger. Since in industrialized nations taxes make up a large part of the GNI, I cannot see XBT dethroning national currencies. The usual inflation of traditional currencies would predictably lead to a deflationary spiral in XBT until it either hits a ceiling or goes into extremely fast boom and bust cycles that kill trust. Everyone who tried to evade the debasement of his savings by 2% inflation only to witness them melting 50% in the next XBT bubble pop will be hesitant to go there again - especially if the market get so narrow that selling is a real problem.
ximeng 13y ago
Thanks gbog. To what extent is Baidu just small teams? I would have thought there should be at least a central core team for search? That link using the HN link shortener: http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/What-will-Baidu-and-Bitcoin-accomplish-together/answer/Kaiser-Kuo?srid=uB5V&share=1 http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/What-will-Baidu-and-Bitcoin-acc...

by gbog 13y ago

adventured 13y ago

Bitcoin doesn't threaten taxes at all. It would be like suggesting that taxes didn't work in the age of cash transactions (eg for the first 200 years of US history). Primarily it threatens fiat-based Keynesian economics by making it impossible to inflate away savings / wealth / standard of living as a means of government deficit financing. To the extent a government is dependent on devaluing their currency to remain afloat or otherwise pretend to be better off than they are (eg paying for entitlements with inflation), is the extent to which bitcoin would be a threat with wide-scale adoption.

iSnow 13y ago
As long as the Gov't has authority what asset it accepts for tax payments, legal tender as issued by the central bank is in no danger. Since in industrialized nations taxes make up a large part of the GNI, I cannot see XBT dethroning national currencies. The usual inflation of traditional currencies would predictably lead to a deflationary spiral in XBT until it either hits a ceiling or goes into extremely fast boom and bust cycles that kill trust. Everyone who tried to evade the debasement of his savings by 2% inflation only to witness them melting 50% in the next XBT bubble pop will be hesitant to go there again - especially if the market get so narrow that selling is a real problem.

ximeng 13y ago

Thanks gbog. To what extent is Baidu just small teams? I would have thought there should be at least a central core team for search? That link using the HN link shortener: http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/What-will-Baidu-and-Bitcoin-accomplish-together/answer/Kaiser-Kuo?srid=uB5V&share=1 http://www.quora.com/Bitcoin/What-will-Baidu-and-Bitcoin-acc...