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Comment by imtringued | Hacker News Reader

Let's say you build the perfect monetary policy into a cryptocurrency. Okay, now the basic institution of money is working again but what about everything else?

>Over the last two years, Lebanon has been gripped by an economic death spiral, the culmination of years of government corruption and mismanagement. The electricity supply has collapsed, pharmacies and gas stations are empty,

The article mentions infrastructure. First, how do you use cryptocurrencies with limited access to electricity? Second, how does cryptocurrency help with physical infrastructure? Have there been successful cases of countries with private infrastructure? Has there ever been an ICO to pay for a cell phone tower or a solar farm?

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The idea, in Bitcoin standard, is that government projects should be financed with taxes; not by printing money. When money has no cost, it inevitably results in loss of responsibility and capital mismanagement. The usual story is that government uses the money printer to enrich themselves, and also funds an army to keep people from overthrowing them.

When government is funded with taxes, there are limits on how much can be spent, and spending follows democratic principles and responsibility. Authoritarian or incompetent governments wouldn't be able to fund themselves, when people refuse to pay taxes to them. This works, because bitcoin can't be inflated and it can't be confiscated.

Except of course that when incompetent or authoritarian governments have to borrow or seize money they need to cover up shortfalls, the consequences aren't exactly better...

And it's not like crypto removes the notion of wealthy elites capturing the revenue of money printing, it just moves them and their money a long way from the local economy, requires them to spend a lot of money on burning power and removes any incentive for them to spend it on local roads or schools.

> The idea, in Bitcoin standard, is that government projects should be financed with taxes; not by printing money.

I do think many Bitcoin enthusiasts might philosophically agree with the general viewpoint that paying for Government projects with taxes is a better alternative than debasing the currency, but I'd think Bitcoin itself is totally agnostic as to what Government needs to exist or how Government should be financed.

> Have there been successful cases of countries with private infrastructure?

Infrastructure generally starts out private and gets nationalized over time.

Are you sure it doesn't go the other way?

Yes, I am. As an example, the French public retirement pension system was built after WWII from a multitude of private pensions that were put in place over decades by various unions/corporations/guilds.

Privatizations also happen, it's not an irreversible process, but over a scale of centuries I think the tendency is towards nationalization of utilities. (Though the US is an outlier in how little it nationalizes)

>Have there been successful cases of countries with private infrastructure?

The US's energy infrastructure was originally private.

This is precisely an attribute of the story-line from the game Escape from Tarkov that I didn't understand. It's set in a modern post world-war russia and most of the transactions are completed in the game's "crypto ruble". You can mine currency with GPU's etc outside of the FPS portion of the game. However, without well maintained networks and electrical grids how on earth would a PoW or PoS crypto exist at all?

> First, how do you use cryptocurrencies with limited access to electricity?

You only need to charge your phone once per day. If power goes out, no problem. If you have no electricity at home somebody close by probably has a phone charging business.

What's powering the cell towers?

Valid question, but anecdotally, travelling often in the third world, 4G is always available, even when the whole neighborhood goes dark. Most homes use 4G routers (with a battery, basically a headless phone with a hotspot) for internet, for this reason.

Does the phone / mobile network go offline during electricity blackouts in the first world?

Where I live the traditional non-voip landlines, and the mobile network have almost always worked when there is no electricity.

Yup. Earlier this year there was a major cascading blackout in Central America. It affected all of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I chatted with friends in all of those countries and it seemed that everyone's phone/internet was working well. Those who were working remotely, continued working with their laptops and tethered mobile internet from their phones during that morning.

> First, how do you use cryptocurrencies with limited access to electricity?

With a mobile phone. Unless network communications are also down...

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