I am glad there is crypto because cash is dying and complete government control over all your assets is becoming a real possibility. Cashless is convenient but also very dangerous for a free society.
Fiat is great, if cash exists.
Fiat is great, if cash exists.
The trick is that government is actually people, so make sure it's the right people
I'm sure Putin would like to see you try. Sometimes a political solution is not possible (e.g. Russia, China), so a technological solution is the only option.
That's the entire point of crypto, the government has nothing to do with it. Bitcoin was being used for years before any laws came out.
I can't help but wonder whether or not people realize that everything from fascist dictators to literal jihadist terrorists desperately want government-less crypto currency to finally unlock their finances from western sanction, so they can super-charge their activity (be it oppressing their people, committing terror attacks, invading their neighbors, etc).
There's a very real political cost to uncontrollable finance systems, and that cost is bourne in violence and suffering.
That's before we begin to discuss unregulated black markets that thrive on unregulated currencies.
How many kids are being hospitalized or dying because of black market vaping products they bought online?
How many kids are being hospitalised because of black market vaping products bought online with VISA/MASTERCARD/PAYPAL?
Every issue you have with bitcoin exists with other currencies and mediums if exchange. Bitcoin is a drip in the ocean in comparison.
If these are genuine concerns of your you should focus on another method of preventing them.
A lot less than you think. These networks, UNLIKE BITCOIN, are regulated, must follow the law, and actively combat fraud and crime on their networks. They keep records and turn records over to law enforcement and many criminals have been caught because they used these networks.
>are all happy to transact in USD.
Where we have laws and regulations, flagging, bank reporting, and entire law enforcement divisions dedicated to tracking financial crime, combating it, and bringing lawsuit against those who do it.
Almost every major criminal who chose to use USD got caught because of that choice.
Unlike Bitcoin, which is unregulated, unmonitored, with no ability to flag suspicious transactions, and no ability to ban bad actors.
>Every issue you have with bitcoin exists with other currencies and mediums if exchange.
This is extremely false. Major networks all obey law and regulation, assist law enforcement actively, track and report suspicious uses, and are vital in combating sex trafficking, drug trafficking and terrorism.
I'm frankly shocked at the illogical nature of your reply, to false equivocate between a fully deregulated currency that has no law enforcement whatsoever, with one of the most regulated and monitored currencies in the world -- it's breathtaking.
To prove how illogical and ridiculous you are being, I will ask you one question:
If you want to buy $15,000 worth of heroin from a dark net drug distributor, would you do it in bitcoin, or a USD wire transfer?
Your answer to this question should help you realize the ridiculously fallacious nature of your reply to me.
>If these are genuine concerns of your you should focus on another method of preventing them.
We successfully combat these things in USD, Visa, etc. We cannot combat them BY DESIGN in bitcoin. For you to suggest that we abandon the only mediums where we can track and stop criminals and switch to a medium where criminals are largely untrackable and operate freely without fear, it's beyond illogical, it's downright insane.
"Someone got murdered once, that proves the police are 100% ineffective and we should switch to a society without police!"
Citation please.
>If you want to buy $15,000 worth of heroin from a dark net drug distributor, would you do it in bitcoin, or a USD wire transfer?
Sure, you use bitcoin because thats what online distributors accept. But you answer me this, if I want to buy 50kg of cocaine or heroin, am I paying the Mexican Cartels/Afghan warlords/Colombian cartels USD or BTC?
>We successfully combat these things in USD, Visa, et
If we could successfully combat these with VISA would carding still be a thing? Would identity theft be a thing?
1bn was stolen from Moldovan banks by bank transfer and they still couldn't get the money back. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldovan_bank_fraud_scandal
So it's hardly like any of these are a secure medium, sure there are laws that can be used to prosecute offenders, same ones that can be used for crimes involving bitcoin. Bitcoin is also trackable/traceable with the right resources BY DESIGN (not sure why that matter but it matters to you).
Also I think it was the SEC who said that cash was the preferred option for criminals, with bitcoin being a very small area for money laundering or other criminal activities.
There is a lot of hyperbole in your comment (breathtaking, insane, illogical) and a significant misunderstanding of bitcoin. Perhaps don't act so superior when you don't know everything.
That countries usually overstretch their economies is something different from inflating money.
Crazy, I know.
Do Mexican cartels accept bitcoin? Do black market arms dealers? Prostitution, modern slavery?
Bitcoin increased a thousand times in value, and it made no material difference to circulation of illegal goods. You can't even buy weed from local dealers with it.
Isn't this already the case? it's just in day to day life they don't exert that control over you, but they can. Which of your assets are currently out of reach by your government?
FB (and by extension any private entity) can ban my account for nothing if they like.
And Google actually does that. I'm not bringing up Google to shift the example from Facebook, but only to remind everyone that there already is at least one company controlling important aspects of lives of many people, that's known for shutting down people's account seemingly without reason (maybe there are good reasons, but they don't communicate them well) and without recourse (except posting on HN and hoping some googler will spot it). So what you describe isn't a hypothetical problem.
For instance, if someone buys drugs with cash, there's no automatically generated electronic record of that transfer.
That's different than if you Venmo your dealer or whatever.
A sovereign government has full control of the life, liberty and assets of everyone in their territory, subject to all kinds of due process on how they're going to exercise that control or not. The main restraints on gov't power are the ethical and legal choices we the people make to say what the government should be allowed to do, not a physical impossibility to do them. It's not really relevant to debabate whether gov't is capable to seize your virtual assets if it's capable to come and shoot you in the head; it doesn't do that because it's not supposed to do that, not because it's incapable.
I put 'free' in quotes because complete freedom for one person is slavery for another, so it is never completely clear to me what people actually want when they talk about free society or free markets.
My understanding is that free markets must be non-coersive and non-violent, where all participants exercise freedom in how they act or not within the marketplace. Otherwise, if we allow any form of coersion (including any price controls) we have at least some slavery, not a free markets.
When I read my previous comment again I see it can come off as a bit preachy, I'm actually all for regulated free markets and regulated capitalism. But I also hate regulations that are only for the benefit of entrenched players, like for example when you need a license to call yourself a hairdresser or something. I do support the need for a license to call yourself a doctor or structural engineer, so it's a tricky path.
In the hands of humans, liberty and justice are always proximate, not ultimate (though I think they can be real).
Can I sell dangerous products? Can I lie about my product? Am I obligated to explain the negative consequences of using my products? Can I sell drugs to kids?
For most people there comes a point where they say 'hang on, you are not allowed to do that!' And then the regulation debate starts.
> My understanding is that free markets must be non-coersive and non-violent, where all participants exercise freedom in how they act or not within the marketplace. Otherwise, if we allow any form of coersion (including any price controls) we have at least some slavery, not a free markets.
I don't think you're really answering the GP's question. You could have a literal slave market that's totally free, non-violent, and non-coercive, because in that market, the slaves are products, not market participants. If you don't want stuff like slave trading, then you need to put limits on the free market, so an important question is what limits (if any) does the speaker want on the "free market."
Government collects taxes.
There is an unavoidable obligation for companies to provide value.
There are plenty of companies that provide negative value to some of their stakeholders. If you imagine adding up all the value provided to the primary and secondary stakeholders, for some companies this sum arguably ends up being negative. Business models where that sum ends up strongly negative tend to be banned quickly, though.
You also have vastly more freedom over whether to deal with any specific company or not than you do with the government, and they either genuinely don’t care about you so they’ll leave you alone, or they want your money so they’ll try to please you. If the government worked as well as Google, a company with legendarily bad customer service that would probably be an improvement for most over now.
Given the choice between exit and voice the former is vastly better at getting good results.