Hacker News Reader

Comment by matheusmoreira | Hacker News Reader

> eventually we wake up in a pretty darn restrictive world where you can‘t even transfer 10k euros from A to B without having to explain things

This is the exact problem cryptocurrencies were invented to solve. We're supposed to be free to spend our money without the indignity of having to explain things to some bank or government. The better the technology, the more tyrannical the government must become to maintain the same level of control. We'll either end up with total subversion of government controls or totalitatian governments.

View on HN

"We're supposed to be free to spend our money without the indignity of having to explain things to some bank or government."

Why do you think that?

Because they are not owed any explanation. It's our money, we should be able to spend it on whatever we want. We don't have to prove anything to anyone.

Anything else means the money doesn't actually belong to us, it belongs to the bank or government and they're just generously allowing us access to it. People work hard every day for a living, they shouldn't have to suffer this sort of indignity.

You're born into a contract with society. If it's purely "your" money, then you should exist outside the protections offered to you by society that is based on a currency anyway.

Contracts are voluntary agreements. Nobody is born into a contract. The idea of a social contract implies we have a choice: accept the group's rules or be removed and lose group benefits. This is simply not possible.

We are forced to try and change the system from within. The means for doing it vary. Lobbying the government, electing favorable politicians, violent revolution... In current times people can just build technology that implements whatever change they want to see in the world. Technology so powerful it alters the "social contract" whether governments want it or not.

Sure, you can destabilize the contract. Make your own money that has its own pitfalls. Just because it’s more advanced technically doesn’t mean it’s better for a society.

A deflationary currency is actually terrible for a world with population growth. It ensures if you were born earlier you have more wealth.

And I say this with 50% NW in crypto.

So make all of your transactions in Bitcoin and don’t convert to fiat. Problem solved?

Can I buy food with Bitcoin? Pay my rent? Get clothes for my kids?

Maybe Bitcoin isn’t the solution then?

Bitcoin is bad for this. Monero is much better. I'd use it for payments if I could but very few people accept it.

Unfortunately fiat currencies will always be necessary due to force of law. All governments want to have their own currency for some reason. They make laws forcing businesses to accept their currency and refuse to accept taxes in any other currency.

No one is going to lose the stability afforded by centralized Western government for crypto. That's a false dichotomy.

What stability? Governments are literally printing money at unprecedented rates. Fiat currencies are losing value at increasing speeds. We're discussing cryptocurrencies in a thread about Turkey attempting to force citizens to use their own rapidly depreciating currency instead of bitcoin.

> currencies are losing value at increasing speeds

Wouldn't that imply high levels of inflation, which isn't happening in many economies, especially widely available and exchanged ones like USD, EUR, etc.? The value of the Lira is falling and there is high inflation, but it's disingenuous to pretend this is common for currencies and economies around the world.

Right, current value is stable. But there's so much fiat money being issued into circulation without corresponding increase of wealth. That makes its future value risky. Or if there's an explanation why it is not risky I'd like to see one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com