Cryptocurrencies

[Luca]

1 hour ago, Dave86ch said:

 

The diary has the precise goal of sharing perspectives and research from other people.

Here, you can find some of my thoughts on the matter.

https://dscompounding.com/2023/04/24/compound-your-energy/

Technically, I run a full Bitcoin node, and I'm setting up a Lightning node to allow my AI agent to start interacting with a native digital currency. I'm trying to dig into the opcode. I already have a good understanding of Solidity, but I feel that proof of work is a more powerful concept. I'm working to acquire more technical skills to truly implement Bitcoin in some learning projects.

Aha, thats truly understandable to me

Edited August 16, 2023 by Luca

[wachtwoord]

On 8/15/2023 at 5:31 PM, rkbabang said:

 

 

I have no idea if @Dave86ch can prove you wrong, but I am 100% certain that time will.

 

 

And I'm 100% sure time has.

Time and time again.

 

Only for those that actually care too look of course

[wachtwoord]

On 8/15/2023 at 5:51 PM, Luca said:

 From a monetary policy perspective, a global cryptocurrency area is unlikely to be an optimal currency area, as this would lead to an inability to adjust exchange rates within the ‘area’. The result would thus be a crypto-monetary policy (ie its supply protocol) that would be consistently too tight and too accommodative for different countries at different times.

 

Other major risks that could undermine trust in cryptocurrencies could arise from market concentration (which could lead to the falsification of the ledger and to ‘double spend’ issues), from the manipulation of the value of the currency via insider trading and from the reliance on unregulated intermediaries necessary to use cryptocurrencies.

 

For what its worth, some thoughts regarding crypto. Its a very complex topic. 

PC-10_2018_2.pdf 286.27 kB · 0 downloads

 

To start: Bitcoin isn't primarily a currency. Just like gold it's primarily a store of value.

 

However in responce to: "From a monetary policy perspective, a global cryptocurrency area is unlikely to be an optimal currency area, as this would lead to an inability to adjust exchange rates within the ‘area’." 

 

That makes a giant assumption that adjusting rates in a centralized fashion that is beneficial (better than letting the market set it, eg decentralized) is both:

 

1. Theoretically possible

2. Given 1 that any party or subset of actors with this ability would be incentivized to do so rather than optimize for self-enrichment.

 

I reject both as extremely naive (and 1 as terribly arrogant too).

[jfan]

A few random thoughts.

 

On Money

 

Money has 3 functions:

1) Store of value

2) Medium of Exchange

3) Unit of Account

 

Bitcoin at this current stage is becoming a store of value (at least that is what the narrative Bitcoin bulls are spreading to others). It is not yet a medium of exchange nor remotely close to a unit of account. 

 

According to folklore, money needs to progress from #1 to #2 to get to #3. This seems logical from a first principles perspective: something needs to considered valuable before people are willing to trade goods and services for it. Something needs to hit a critical mass of the population who use it as a medium of exchange before it can be considered the widely accepted base unit of account.

 

As a money evolves, people are willing to lend it and others desire to borrow it. The interest rate is the price of time. (lenders give time for borrowers to use today) This price, historically, is driven by market forces (supply and demand) as well as government decrees/policies. Historically, across different civilizations, governments tend to centralize the control of money over time. Politicians tend to expand the money supply and suppress interest rates which often lead to asset bubbles. The reasons are often well-intentioned. The initial rationale is to help their populace who might be suffering from some calamity. The problem is that after the initial support, the temptation for continued growth is too great. Hence, the rise and fall of monies and civilizations over time.  

 

F.Hayek pontificates on what good money would look like in his book "The denationalization of money". He includes a diagram of a normal distribution on its side. A good money can fluctuate over its central tendency as driven by market forces (it does not need to be without any variability). A bad money has a tendency to skew one way or the other over time through political manipulations. Hayek envisions a competition of private banks doing this job. With well-managed private banks that have good money winning out in the end.

 

Bitcoin is interesting because there is no nation. Its monetary policy is difficult to change (unless enough miners agree to alter the algorithm but even then, enough nodes need to agree to these changes, or otherwise a fork occurs). IF bitcoin continues to monetize globally, I'd imagine that the cost of borrowing bitcoin will fluctuate with supply-demand dynamics that is relatively free from political manipulation. The price of time would have trend towards its natural value which in turn reduce the magnitude of asset bubbles and mal-investment in uneconomic ideas.

 

What affect will this have a country if they hit some economic snag if Bitcoin was global accepted as a medium of exchange and unit of account if no centralized party can alter its monetary policy? I wonder if this process is gradual enough, that people will actually be incentivized to save more (in bitcoin) and disincentivize people from borrowing beyond their means especially for personal discretionary consumption; thereby reducing the need for centralized political intervention?

 

On Double Spend

 

Double spending would require that some control 51% of the hash rate to re-write the blockchain. If the Forbes article Why Does Bitcoin Use So Much Energy? – Forbes Advisor Canada is correct in its estimate of 127 terawatt-hours annually, this means that the cost of run the network is ~ $23 billion if the average price of electricity is $0.18/kwh. Electricity prices around the world | GlobalPetrolPrices.com

 

Below is the hash rate distribution according to Statista for 2019-2022. Bitcoin mining by country 2022 | Statista

 

I would be curious to see what the global adoption of bitcoin is? Do bitcoin holders reflect the hash rate distribution or not?

 

More questions. Few answers.

 

 

.

 

 

 

 

[wachtwoord]

10 hours ago, jfan said:

 

3) Unit of Account

 

 

Well said. Wrt Unit of Account I want to add that currently there isn't any good financial Unit of Account.

 

For most things we want to keep track of the absolute value matters. Eg. For the size if your house the floor space as measured in m2 stays the same every year both in the unit of Account as in actual size that it implies. You can directly compare the size if your house vs someone's house 100 years ago without any issues.

 

For a monetary Unit this is not the case however since the absolute value of this abstract concept is meaningless. The ratio of nr of units vs total outstanding units is better (and for this Bitcoin actually does do better than other currencies because of the limited supply) but still there are issues with it as what monetary value it represents also strongly depends on the amount of people in the market and the supply of desirable things to own or consume in the market. Both the supply (products) and demand (humans) have uniformly increased exponentially over the last 2 centuries (amazingly with supply growth even outpacing demand growth leading to the highest average standard of living in history). I don't how to objectively and subjectively normalize for both these factors. However, I do know that Bitcoin is a better unit of Account theoretically than fiat currencies (as total supply of monetary units is constant). Just a matter of waiting until price discovery is further along. The spring is still widely oscillating after being pulled and let go off.

[Parsad]

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/bored-apes-sothebys-lawsuit/index.html

 

Cheers!

[rkbabang]

9 hours ago, Parsad said:

https://www.cnn.com/style/article/bored-apes-sothebys-lawsuit/index.html

 

Cheers!

 

LOL.  I have very little sympathy for these people.  Yes, the concept of an NFT is an interesting and potentially useful idea.  Putting titles to property on the blockchain where they can be traded more easily and everyone can see who owns what.  No paper title or registry of deeds needed.   But a title/deed to a piece of property is only valuable if the property in question has value (a house, a car, land, valuable art).  How anyone thought that a digital picture of a cartoon ape would ever be valuable is beyond me.   Some saying that come to mind: Stupid is as stupid does.  A fool and his money are soon parted.

 

[rkbabang]

Does this address belong to anyone here?

 

https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/bc1ql49ydapnjafl5t2cp9zqpjwe6pdgmxy98859v2

 

Someone accumulated $3B worth of $BTC in the last 4 months.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

So cryptocurrencies which provide NO legal basis for ownership of an underlying project, or profits/returns, outside of expressly taking action within a project (like staking) ARE securities....

 

 

But leveraged loans that people buy passively which DOES provide legal entitlement to some form of return/collateral/repayment of principal/etc are not. 

 

What kind of upside down world is this....

 

 

Edited August 24, 2023 by TwoCitiesCapital

[alxcii]

https://www.docdroid.net/vrehbKf/dc-cir-22-1142-01208547571-0-pdf

 

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.38827/gov.uscourts.cadc.38827.1208547574.0_1.pdf

 

"To avoid arbitrariness and caprice, administrative adjudication must be consistent and predictable, following the basic principle that similar cases should be treated similarly. NYSE Arca presented substantial evidence that Grayscale is similar, across the relevant regulatory factors, to bitcoin futures ETPs. The Commission failed to adequately explain why it approved the listing of two bitcoin futures ETPs but not Grayscale’s proposed bitcoin ETP. In the absence of a coherent explanation, this unlike regulatory treatment of like products is unlawful. We therefore grant Grayscale’s petition for review and vacate the Commission’s order."

 

 

Edited August 29, 2023 by alxcii

[TwoCitiesCapital]

5 hours ago, alxcii said:

https://www.docdroid.net/vrehbKf/dc-cir-22-1142-01208547571-0-pdf

 

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.38827/gov.uscourts.cadc.38827.1208547574.0_1.pdf

 

"To avoid arbitrariness and caprice, administrative adjudication must be consistent and predictable, following the basic principle that similar cases should be treated similarly. NYSE Arca presented substantial evidence that Grayscale is similar, across the relevant regulatory factors, to bitcoin futures ETPs. The Commission failed to adequately explain why it approved the listing of two bitcoin futures ETPs but not Grayscale’s proposed bitcoin ETP. In the absence of a coherent explanation, this unlike regulatory treatment of like products is unlawful. We therefore grant Grayscale’s petition for review and vacate the Commission’s order."

 

 

 

Finally! A lawsuit has worked out for me 

 

Still a little juice to be squeezed out of this, but the big money was made buying at 30-50% discounts back when BTC was trading at 15-20k itself. 

 

Still another 15-20% to be made moving back to NAV, but that is tempered by the current fee arrangement of 2+% and the discounting of uncertain timing to conversion. Grayscale has huge vested interest in dragging their feet on any conversion/few reduction as the only revenue stream propping up the DCG empire. 

Edited August 29, 2023 by TwoCitiesCapital

[jfan]

 

 

David Webb's critique on Bitcoin (a bit dated from an investor with a pretty impressive track record with a background in computer science)

 

Bitcoin: the World's first decentralised Ponzi scheme (webb-site.com)

The hole in Bitcoin (webb-site.com)

 

PS: Also included a simple model on BTC fair value for people to have fun with

BTC Mining Model.xlsx

[rkbabang]

From "The hole in Bitcoin" above:

 

"The hole in Bitcoin

We love the science behind Bitcoin (your editor is a mathematician and programmer of the 1980s era, so it brings out his inner geek), but here is the biggest flaw: the economics of it. For Bitcoin to succeed, it has to become a transaction currency, widely-accepted by the real world for goods and services. With a cap of 21 million Bitcoins, the accepted wisdom driving prices is that spreading the limited supply of Bitcoins over all these real-world transactions, even with fractional reserve banking, would necessitate a high valuation per Bitcoin."

 

Go to your local coffee shop, pull out a bag of gold shavings and a scale, then ask the person at the counter how many milligrams of gold for one large coffee?     Just the notion of it is ridiculous.  This is "the hole in" the theory that gold has value.  Sell your gold now before everyone else realizes this.   Since this isn't a hole at all, we won't mention the fact that layer 2 methods make paying for that coffee with bitcoin relatively simple and straightforward if the shop chooses to accept it plugs the "Hole in Bitcoin" even if this was a hole.

 

[Parsad]

Settlements starting in FTX lawsuits:

 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nfl-quarterback-trevor-lawrence-two-051609261.html

 

Cheers!

[changegonnacome]

7 hours ago, rkbabang said:

Go to your local coffee shop, pull out a bag of gold shavings and a scale, then ask the person at the counter how many milligrams of gold for one large coffee?     Just the notion of it is ridiculous.  This is "the hole in" the theory that gold has value.  Sell your gold now before everyone else realizes this.   Since this isn't a hole at all, we won't mention the fact that layer 2 methods make paying for that coffee with bitcoin relatively simple and straightforward if the shop chooses to accept it plugs the "Hole in Bitcoin" even if this was a hole.

Listen it’s time to accept Bitcoin as a future method of payment beside Mastercard & visa rails for digital payment dream is over….layer2 protocols and the lightning networks chance to shine was in El Salvador….apart from the fact that layer2 protocols break the religion of crypto decentrlaization (cause it turns out to run an instant payment method that hopes to have V/M level transactions it actually requires a lot V/M centralization to pull it off).

 

So now you’ve built something that looks like Visa Mastercard…a centralized-esque layer2 solution…with inherently less consumer protection/chargebacks/disputes such that it’s less consumer friendly…ok maybe it’s cheaper….but driving adoption for payments via cheaper interchange fees has failed….debit carrys tiny fees/discover has tried to undercut fees at times…merchants god bless them can’t get people to use them instead of CC’s…..the consumer is in the driving seat here…..but to top all that business dynamics & competition setup off….whatever layer2 protocol built on BTC has one MASSIVE problem….it ultimately has to phone home to BTC’s crippling slow spreadsheet to update….a spreadsheet that would make an oracle database solution from 1985 look like it was designed by aliens from another planet given its relative ability to process database changes.

 

Gold is never going to be a currency it’s a store of value

 

BTC’s last hope isn’t global payments enabled by layer2 nonsense built on it…..it’s a digital gold….a more portable virtual lives in your mind version of gold.

 

This it has a shot at….id advise those in space….get down to business and make that dream come through….and don’t waste your time with this payments pipe dream.

Edited September 19, 2023 by changegonnacome

[Dave86ch]

I personally run a Lightning node, and it works flawlessly: it's safe, fast, easy to set up, and anonymous.

 

I'm working on top of the safest asset in the world.

 

There are no intermediaries, no buildings filled with workers who only pretend to work, and no handling of bureaucracy or complex hierarchical ranks. It's just autonomous software, silicon and a 100% anti-fragile democracy incentivized to exploited untapped source of energy.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Dave86ch

[SharperDingaan]

Have to think that most everyday payments are going to be done by CBDC; which we increasingly see happening every day (eCNY, eKrona, etc.). We will still have the rails (Visa, Mastercard, FedPay, etc.), & cash; but with less activity in each stream.

 

While the Lightning network is a good 2nd level payment solution, it sucks as a business solution. For those small everyday purchases (coffee, lunch, etc.) it really doesn't matter if I can be tracked; and it's a lot easier/more cost effective to simply break the trace by using cash.

 

BTC's true value is in its anonymous portability, and its long term inflation protection (store of value). We can argue to what degree; but the reality is that values are no longer constrained to hard assets for inflation protection, or trapped behind national capital controls.

 

SD 

[Castanza]

6 minutes ago, SharperDingaan said:

Have to think that most everyday payments are going to be done by CBDC; which we increasingly see happening every day (eCNY, eKrona, etc.). We will still have the rails (Visa, Mastercard, FedPay, etc.), & cash; but with less activity in each stream.

 

While the Lightning network is a good 2nd level payment solution, it sucks as a business solution. For those small everyday purchases (coffee, lunch, etc.) it really doesn't matter if I can be tracked; and it's a lot easier/more cost effective to simply break the trace by using cash.

 

BTC's true value is in its anonymous portability, and its long term inflation protection (store of value). We can argue to what degree; but the reality is that values are no longer constrained to hard assets for inflation protection, or trapped behind national capital controls.

 

SD 

Yup the ability to take your net worth (or some worth) with you by simply memorizing a 24 word seed phrase is priceless. Anyone who’s lived through a Warzone or major crisis should understand this.

 

Imagine if this existed during WWII and nations stored their wealth in BTC instead of Gold. Hitler would have had a MUCH tougher time finding the war. Those gold reserves and wealth he stole from Europes banks, citizens, Jews etc. would not have been there.  

[TwoCitiesCapital]

4 hours ago, Castanza said:

Yup the ability to take your net worth (or some worth) with you by simply memorizing a 24 word seed phrase is priceless. Anyone who’s lived through a Warzone or major crisis should understand this.

 

Imagine if this existed during WWII and nations stored their wealth in BTC instead of Gold. Hitler would have had a MUCH tougher time finding the war. Those gold reserves and wealth he stole from Europes banks, citizens, Jews etc. would not have been there.  

 

+1 definitely real world use cases for wanting to transact and or carry your wealth with you from problematic regimes. 

 

Everyone should be down for this level of sovereignty over ones wealth/assets

 

10 hours ago, Dave86ch said:

I personally run a Lightning node, and it works flawlessly: it's safe, fast, easy to set up, and anonymous.

 

I'm working on top of the safest asset in the world.

 

There are no intermediaries, no buildings filled with workers who only pretend to work, and no handling of bureaucracy or complex hierarchical ranks. It's just autonomous software, silicon and a 100% anti-fragile democracy incentivized to exploited untapped source of energy.

 

+1 

 

The other use case I see with BTC is the censorship resistance. CBDCs may work for most, but they'll probably have the same issues that sex workers have, or that marijuana distributors have, and etc. Despite operating in a legal manner, with appropriate registrations and licenses and etc, many of the people/businesses in these fields can't be banked or regularly have their banking privileges revoked because of companies not wanting to be involved in those activities despite their legality. 

 

BTC provides a means of payment that isn't controlled by anyone else's moral compass but your own. Which matters a lot when the government begins deciding the moral compass ...

 

16 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

Gold is never going to be a currency it’s a store of value

 

BTC’s last hope isn’t global payments enabled by layer2 nonsense built on it…..it’s a digital gold….a more portable virtual lives in your mind version of gold.

 

This it has a shot at….id advise those in space….get down to business and make that dream come through….and don’t waste your time with this payments pipe dream.

 

It's just funny to me you'd mention this because gold WAS a currency for eons, has served as the reserve currency currency of multiple empires and was used to bootstrap most modern currencies including the US dollar.

 

It's only been in the last 60-years that fiat has become the default and was only because the US government was going to default on its gold liabilities like all major reserve currencies before it. To look at those 60 years and predict it will always be that way going forward while ignoring the thousands of years preceding that is crazy to me. 

 

Paper money replaced gold for spending because it was more easily carried and subdivided. That's it. Its value came from its backing in gold until people had enough confidence in the credit of a government to accept paper money backed by nothing. But confidence and credit are fragile things. The moment they're gone is the moment you need backing for a currency again like we've seen with most foat currencies. 

 

Bitcoin is more easily carried than paper money, more divisible, and can be sent electronically (paper money cannot be).

If you compare it to payment networks like Visa/MasterCard/CBDCs, than the lightning network does what they do for cheaper with censorship resistance and finality of settlement - both of which carry pros and cons that come with individual sovereignty and responsibility over ones wealth. 

 

Using El Salvador as an example of failure is like asking why Visa's network wasn't built and accepted everywhere in 3-years. It takes time. Over that time we've seen an explosion in the number of wallets and continued adoption and implementation of scaling solutions as well as counterparties willing to participate in the Bitcoin eco-system. Having more people owning BTC and more people accepting BTC over the last 3-years hardly strikes me as evidence of failure - more so as evidence of the continued secular trend. 

[SharperDingaan]

"The other use case I see with BTC is the censorship resistance. CBDCs may work for most, but they'll probably have the same issues that sex workers have, or that marijuana distributors have, and etc"

 

Think of it more as 'active privacy'; and usage primarily as per the Cyberpunk Manifesto. Everything you do on a rail, payment platform, CBDC, etc. is public, and subject to ever changing public censorship (good/bad). Whereas BTC offers a widely available, direct and fully functional censorship resistant alternative, that you pay to use - as/when you need. Big brother suddenly turns on you ... the jaws snap on empty space, not your life savings.

https://archive.org/details/anarchy_Cypherpunk_Manifesto 

 

SD

Edited September 19, 2023 by SharperDingaan

[changegonnacome]

3 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

If you compare it to payment networks like Visa/MasterCard/CBDCs, than the lightning network does what they do for cheaper with censorship resistance and finality of settlement - both of which carry pros and cons that come with individual sovereignty and responsibility over ones wealth. 

 

Joe Sixpack buying a six pack..or a carton of milk...isnt looking for finality of settlement & censorship resistance.....he's looking for ubiquitous acceptance, low friction & speed....and if/when his payment method (phone/card) is stolen...or a merchant scams him.....he's looking for chargebacks and theft protection.

 

The value proposition where a lightning network beats M & V's value prop above is embarrassingly small..surprise surprose again....the TAM extends to paying for illicit goods and services.

 

3 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Using El Salvador as an example of failure is like asking why Visa's network wasn't built and accepted everywhere in 3-years. It takes time. Over that time we've seen an explosion in the number of wallets and continued adoption and implementation of scaling solutions as well as counterparties willing to participate in the Bitcoin eco-system. Having more people owning BTC and more people accepting BTC over the last 3-years hardly strikes me as evidence of failure - more so as evidence of the continued secular trend. 

.

The network simply didnt work in El Salvador........it was a disaster....an implementation flop. Scaling & driving acceptance when you cant support at best a few thousand merchants/customers in your pilot market does not bode well.

 

The technical deficiencies of lightning are stark.......first that any lightning network/layer2 payments solution.....is contrary to crypto ideal.....see the more you want it to actually work.....it requires that layer2 solution to get very centralized very fast....payments at scale are hard....and like every decentralization project I've reviewed trying hard things....its starts to get centralized (in practise) very quickly.

 

There is the age old problem....that is as the complexity of a problem grows so too does required effective centralization & concentrated control required to ensure its continued successful functioning & improvements.......its analogous to anyone that has worked on college group project or on a company project.......every successful project begins somewhat decentralized and shared across the group.....very soon as folks go around in circles getting nowhere a natural and needed centralization occurs...a natural hierarchy of responsibility & control....the crypto decentralization dream....that complex problems in the economy can be replaced by decentralized autonomous blockchain solutions is the deluded dream of mainly solo computer programmers who work always on their own in their basement or folks who never really had to deliver a truly complex robust solution at scale to the public.

[TwoCitiesCapital]

14 hours ago, changegonnacome said:

 

Joe Sixpack buying a six pack..or a carton of milk...isnt looking for finality of settlement & censorship resistance 

 

.

The network simply didnt work in El Salvador........it was a disaster....an implementation flop. 

 

Joe sixpack cares about censorships resistance if the 18th amendment comes back. Or if the government says he has to spend his CBDC on X instead of Y. Or if the government won't allow him to spend his paycheck because he works as a bartender at a strip club and the govt/bank frowns on sex work. 

 

And lightning in El Salvador definitely had some issues/bugs when first implemented. But onboarding more people to electronic payments in a month than the banking industry had in decades is hardly a "flop". Everyone in El Salvador now has the choice to make payments electronically - the vast majority of them did not have that choice before. That is a huge success even if they aren't exercising the option daily. 

 

I myself don't exercise the option daily - not because L1 and L2 payment systems don't work but because of the Gresham's law. Doesn't mean the option isn't valuable - particularly for those who've already amassed a large amount of wealth in BTC and want to spend it. 

[rkbabang]

19 hours ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Using El Salvador as an example of failure is like asking why Visa's network wasn't built and accepted everywhere in 3-years. It takes time. Over that time we've seen an explosion in the number of wallets and continued adoption and implementation of scaling solutions as well as counterparties willing to participate in the Bitcoin eco-system. Having more people owning BTC and more people accepting BTC over the last 3-years hardly strikes me as evidence of failure - more so as evidence of the continued secular trend. 

 

People tend to think that just because credit cards are now accepted everywhere and people use them for just about every purchase that it was always that way.  The growth in card use to where it is now took many decades.  I remember my parents would cash my fathers pay check for actual cash and keep it in a drawer in the house for my mother to buy groceries and pay the bills (back then, at least in our area, you could pay your electricity bill or phone bill at the service desk of the grocery store using cash).   Credit cards were something you used only for large purchases which you needed to pay off over time.  My parents never used them at all when I was young.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by rkbabang

[rkbabang]

1 hour ago, TwoCitiesCapital said:

Joe sixpack cares about censorships resistance if the 18th amendment comes back. Or if the government says he has to spend his CBDC on X instead of Y. Or if the government won't allow him to spend his paycheck because he works as a bartender at a strip club and the govt/bank frowns on sex work. 

 

 

 

Or like what Canada did to the truckers and those supporting them.  That was without CBDC, with CBDC the government's power to control what you can and can't buy, or to just shut you off from access to your money becomes much worse.  Whether its what happened to the truckers, pot shops not having access to banking, paypal and the credit card companies shutting off donations to Wikileaks, etc...   No government or government regulated institution should be trusted with this type of power over your wealth.  I'm just afraid many people won't realize this until its too late.  When they can't buy groceries because of something they posted to Facebook, or they can't put gas in their car because they've already spent too much on gas that month and saving the planet requires cutting them off.    People are eventually going to want a censorship proof money outside of government control.  Or you get paid with money with an expiration dates to force you to spend it rather than save.  CBDC is a nightmare dystopian 1984 scenario.

 

 

 

[jfan]

Lyn Alden has just published a book titled Broken Money - Why our financial system is failing us and how we can make it better.

 

Just reading chapters of it now, it is a good general primer on the subject along with a discussion on some of the counterpoints brought up here on this thread. eg transaction throughput, energy intensity, etc