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Comment by bradleysmith | Hacker News Reader

it would mean a distributed work-based hashing process would be the determinant of money supply of the world reserve currency.

The world reserve currency is the US dollar. Even if a central bank holds gold as a store of value, they price it and their own currency in the US dollar. If any commodity was to be labeled a de-facto 'world currency' it would be petroleum, as it is a commodity that everyone MUST purchase in some fashion.

The monetary supply of the US dollar is determined by the Fed, which has no oversight from or obligation to the countries which that monetary supply affects. It's clear moral hazard, on a global scale.

people would still use fractional reserve lending, and credit. But, no one sovereignty would be in control of the supply of the the medium of exchange they used.

I'm not arguing it would improve anything, but it would certainly be different.

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We already had, in essence, a 'proof of work' system with gold. Gold supply increases by only a percent or two per year, and it is highly resource / energy intensive. And note that many central banks, including US, China, Russia, have and /or are even adding to their gold reserves. (Ben Bernanke says it's for 'tradition' - cough, cough, eye roll, cough)

But as JP Morgan said, "gold is money. everything else is credit." Banks don't care about the underlying reserve money as long as they control the credit, which gets used as if it were money.

>but it would certainly be different.

I don't see how. And even if it were, the powers that be like things just the way they are.

> We already had, in essence, a 'proof of work' system with gold. Gold supply increases by only a percent or two per year, and it is highly resource / energy intensive.

But the people doing a lot of the hardest dangerous work get very very lite for doing so. Money is made by pushing buttens at the right time to move numbers around a network.

>Money is made by pushing buttens at the right time to move numbers around a network.

Yes, and that's probably not going to ever change, not sure what your point was....

But here's where people get REALLY rich. Banks financing government debt (pushing a button, as you say) which is cosigned by 300 million of us serfs, for stupid unsustainable shit like wars and welfare. The banks and credit masters win, and the rest of us are FUCKED.

PS guns and butter was what led to the end of the gold standard. If you think bitcoin is going to somehow stop governments from over spending, or banks from over lending, foreclosing, and buying assets for pennies on the dollar, you need a history lesson.

the people doing a lot of the hardest dangerous work get very very lite for doing so

Same story with bitcoin, though the physical onus is removed.

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