Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 103 posts

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#71

Post by alchemist1e9 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #60
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate irony will be the harder governments try to push CBDCs the more they will increase demand for Bitcoin. Which sounds like better money: 1. money that can expire. be tracked 100% and censored. be auto taxed. auto inflated. or 2. money that has limited supply. is permission-less and uncensored. and no single party can control. It’s the ultimate foolishness of governments to believe the will win that competi…

> It’s the ultimate foolishness of governments to believe the will win that competition. I don’t think it’s foolishness at all. The government today has much more power than it did when I was a child. When did anybody ever succeed in reversing this trend? This type of regulation is perfectly poised for success as well, as most people will be unaffected by it, and most people won’t even have any motive to understand t…

Except with Bitcoin it needs all governments everywhere to coordinate in banning it. It would require extensive intrusive control of the internet. It seems incredibly unlikely that democratic governments will succeed in suppressing Bitcoin and promoting CBDCs.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#72

Post by roenxi »

vagabund wrote: post #40
lockhouse wrote: post #8

I understand the advantages of this for the government. It will be much easier to track and control how we spend our money and ensure that we pay every last possible cent of taxes. What is the advantage for me as a citizen?

More granular economic data probably means better monetary policy and fewer systemic risks.

How are you imagining that more granular data would help? It probably won't make a difference. The lag time between action and result is measured in years and there are shocks along the way.

And even if it did, we've never really had the public debate on monetary policy. I reckon the median voter would, all else being equal, want "stable prices" to mean that the prices don't change on average. It isn't at all clear we want the community who thinks "stable" means "exponential increase" to be made more effective in their work.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#73

Post by AmericanChopper »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #71
AmericanChopper wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s the ultimate foolishness of governments to believe the will win that competition. I don’t think it’s foolishness at all. The government today has much more power than it did when I was a child. When did anybody ever succeed in reversing this trend? This type of regulation is perfectly poised for success as well, as most people will be unaffected by it, and most people won’t even have any motive to understand t…

Except with Bitcoin it needs all governments everywhere to coordinate in banning it. It would require extensive intrusive control of the internet. It seems incredibly unlikely that democratic governments will succeed in suppressing Bitcoin and promoting CBDCs.

Banning Bitcoin has never been necessary. If you want to do business in the UK (or any other place), then you need to comply with the rules of their financial institutions. That means doing the KYC, complying with the AML rules, and using whatever currency the central government issues. The government doesn’t need to promote anything. They are the ones who make the rules.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#74

Post by mister_tee »

credit_guy wrote: post #58

Will a 51% attack be able to wipe out trillions? China and Russia must be smiling.

My understanding, anyone is welcome to correct: the 51% attack doesn't apply, but that's because there is a central party with full control from the start.

CBDCs are digital currencies but do not have to be cryptocurrencies with distributed consensus, blockchain, proof of work, etc.

Instead they are likely to be completely centralized; at an (absurd) extreme a global Excel sheet with edit access enabled for the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chair.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#75

Post by credit_guy »

mister_tee wrote: post #74
credit_guy wrote: post #58

Will a 51% attack be able to wipe out trillions? China and Russia must be smiling.

My understanding, anyone is welcome to correct: the 51% attack doesn't apply, but that's because there is a central party with full control from the start. CBDCs are digital currencies but do not have to be cryptocurrencies with distributed consensus, blockchain, proof of work, etc. Instead they are likely to be completely centralized; at an (absurd) extreme a global Excel sheet with edit access enabled for the Treas…

But then how is it different from regular currencies?

Take the US dollar. It's mostly numbers in databases. Physical cash (dollar bills and coins) is a tiny fraction of the total amount of money in circulation. By now all major currencies are "digital", and most likely all non-major currencies too.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#76

Post by alchemist1e9 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #73
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except with Bitcoin it needs all governments everywhere to coordinate in banning it. It would require extensive intrusive control of the internet. It seems incredibly unlikely that democratic governments will succeed in suppressing Bitcoin and promoting CBDCs.

Banning Bitcoin has never been necessary. If you want to do business in the UK (or any other place), then you need to comply with the rules of their financial institutions. That means doing the KYC, complying with the AML rules, and using whatever currency the central government issues. The government doesn’t need to promote anything. They are the ones who make the rules.

You seem to have never heard of capital flight. Won’t be any different when fiat currencies start collapsing one day.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#77

Post by AmericanChopper »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #76
AmericanChopper wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banning Bitcoin has never been necessary. If you want to do business in the UK (or any other place), then you need to comply with the rules of their financial institutions. That means doing the KYC, complying with the AML rules, and using whatever currency the central government issues. The government doesn’t need to promote anything. They are the ones who make the rules.

You seem to have never heard of capital flight. Won’t be any different when fiat currencies start collapsing one day.

Capital flight isn’t especially relevant. People with capital will always want access to advanced economies, and to get that access you need to use the currency issued by the economy’s central bank. There’s also no reason think this would be a capital-hostile move, large capital transactions are already highly scrutinized and regulated. This would compromise the privacy and freedoms of individuals, who I doubt are going to care.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross »

alchemist1e9 wrote: post #29
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #22

Crypto was always mis-marketed as decentralised. It’s not. The American banking system is decentralised. Credit is created and balances maintained at the edges. Blockchain is centralised. This brings many efficiencies. But it also empowers those at the centre.

Huh? What a strange characterization. Blockchains, some, are clearly decentralized and permission-less. US banking system is highly regulated and permission-ed. Are you standing by your statement with a serious face? https://www.occ.gov/about/who-we-are/index-who-we-are.html

> standing by your statement with a serious face?

Yes. There is no database of who has how much in every account. Even with bank and account number, lookup is nontrivial. Blockchains present a single record of everyone’s wallets, all the time. (Even politically, Bitcoin is an oligopoly of miners. Their controlling persons may number fewer than half of the Congress. Proof of Stake, meanwhile, is explicitly rule by the rich.)

Permissionless, and more pointedly, unregulated, are blockchain’s features. Decentralisation is not.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#79

Post by jhanschoo »

lockhouse wrote: post #8

I understand the advantages of this for the government. It will be much easier to track and control how we spend our money and ensure that we pay every last possible cent of taxes. What is the advantage for me as a citizen?

If there's a government-blessed open, digital way for a citizen to pay taxes and government services, merchants and banks are highly incentivized to standardize around integrating their payments services on it.

Re: Bank of England and Treasury think UK is 'likely' to need digital currency

#80

Post by alchemist1e9 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #77
alchemist1e9 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have never heard of capital flight. Won’t be any different when fiat currencies start collapsing one day.

Capital flight isn’t especially relevant. People with capital will always want access to advanced economies, and to get that access you need to use the currency issued by the economy’s central bank. There’s also no reason think this would be a capital-hostile move, large capital transactions are already highly scrutinized and regulated. This would compromise the privacy and freedoms of individuals, who I doubt are go…

We will have to agree to disagree because your perspective, while understandable, I fundamentally believe is flawed in it views powers of the state as growing and large enough to overcome market forces that would otherwise chose superior money over inferior CBDC money. We could go on endless between us and in the end it comes down to how we perceive the nation state as evolving with technological changes that include Bitcoin and other modern private currencies. I’m fairly confident it’s much more likely globally the nation states will lose that battle in the end. However you will continue to argue that state power is large enough to counter this. It’s not a debate with a conclusion unless we wait for the future to happen. To your last comment, I would simply say you likely underestimate the scope and influence of black markets that will expand with the restrictions you imagine.
Post reply on HN