11–20 of 109 posts
When researchers and policymakers begin to have even an inkling of Bitcoin’s deeper significance – more than “anonymous digicash created by evil hackers to buy contraband from drug dealers” – there’s a better chance that banks and governments of the world will start to get serious about cleaning up the global mess they’ve created. Can bitcoin's unregulatable nature really provide an example for how establishment fina…
What makes you think Bitcoin is unregulatable?
What is Bitcoin's deeper significance? I don't know much, but here are some sketches. 1) Bitcoin has the potential to destroy the tools of monetary policy. 2) Bitcoin has the potential to hide taxable income from governments. 3) Governments with dwindling tax bases may react by printing traditional currency, hastening the flight to Bitcoin in a vicious cycle. 4) Traditional currencies may collapse as people rush to c…
When researchers and policymakers begin to have even an inkling of Bitcoin’s deeper significance – more than “anonymous digicash created by evil hackers to buy contraband from drug dealers” – there’s a better chance that banks and governments of the world will start to get serious about cleaning up the global mess they’ve created. Can bitcoin's unregulatable nature really provide an example for how establishment fina…
What makes you think Bitcoin is unregulatable?
2. Politicians can't print more bitcoin as they like. Only according to the protocol and in competition with others.
3. It's virtually impossible to censor Bitcoin transactions (unless you shut down the whole internet in the country).
"Bitcoin is not electronic money… At present its eventual impact on the real economy seems negligible…Bitcoin is not a financial product as defined by law. (Mediation in) the purchase or sale of Bitcoins is not a financial service either, so the Financial Supervision Act does not apply."
Then the article goes on to say:
>ingredients are in place to make Amsterdam a city with a lot of Bitcoin in its future.
And the article then lists a lot of the benefits of having Bitcoin as an unregulated 'local currency', aka a commodity. This is a dangerous place for Bitcoin. If it grows too much, it will be recognized as a currency and regulated. If it grows only slightly, then it will not see any real use outside of the small group that already uses it. In the latter case, people like the author of the article stand to benefit a fair amount. In the former case, people like the author of the article stand be driven out of business, or have their business model impaired, by regulation.
If the point of the article was to convey that this is a golden age for Bitcoin in Holland, then it has achieved its purpose. If the point of the article was to make it seem that significant adoption of Bitcoin in Holland lay ahead, or that it would be a good thing, then it has not done so. In fact, that would be an entirely different article that would have to include more factual and historical analysis than this article even bats an eye at.
> there’s a better chance that banks and governments of the world will start to get serious about cleaning up the global mess they’ve created Never gonna happen. Bitcoin is the cleaning we need. There's absolutely no incentive for governments or banks (which are in bed with governments) to make things better for those, who are not in the club. I don't think Bitcoin's gonna wipe out the very idea of government, but it…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you think Bitcoin's unregulatable nature differs from the unregulatable nature of physical cash?
1. Your cash can be devalued by printing more cash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing 2. If you move or store cash, it can be confiscated by the police: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation/july-dec13/assets_08-1... Bitcoin is impossible to "print" more than scheduled and it's much easier to transport and store safely than cash or gold.
2) The Silk Road bitcoins were confiscated by police just fine. In fact Bitcoin is in some ways easier to trace and therefore confiscate. If the cops can trace a transaction to you they just apply some rubber hose cryptography.
> there’s a better chance that banks and governments of the world will start to get serious about cleaning up the global mess they’ve created Never gonna happen. Bitcoin is the cleaning we need. There's absolutely no incentive for governments or banks (which are in bed with governments) to make things better for those, who are not in the club. I don't think Bitcoin's gonna wipe out the very idea of government, but it…
But who will build the roads? We need someone to force people to do stuff in public's interest .
What is Bitcoin's deeper significance? I don't know much, but here are some sketches. 1) Bitcoin has the potential to destroy the tools of monetary policy. 2) Bitcoin has the potential to hide taxable income from governments. 3) Governments with dwindling tax bases may react by printing traditional currency, hastening the flight to Bitcoin in a vicious cycle. 4) Traditional currencies may collapse as people rush to c…
1. If you buy a house you must show evidence that you earned the money. You can't earn all your Bitcoins Breaking-Bad (or Silk-Road) style and expect that the government will think your new-found fortune is ok. Thanks to the blockchain you kind of can't lie too much, unlike, say, cash.
2. If the government wants to ban certain activities it can do so easily. Suppose that the government wants to keep its citizens from gambling or from using mixer services, it could declare that it won't recognize Bitcoins that passed through those services as legal tender. Good luck paying property taxes with your tainted bitcoins.
... and so on. Things are not that different. In fact the blockchain may mean that the government has more, and not less, access to information: for example governments generally can't access information from other countries except in rare occasions. With Bitcoins that information is accessible by default.
Now what the government can't do with Bitcoin is play games with the money supply. People in places such as Argentina could perhaps tell us why that would be a good thing.
The article is interesting in that it quotes Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem saying: "Bitcoin is not electronic money… At present its eventual impact on the real economy seems negligible…Bitcoin is not a financial product as defined by law. (Mediation in) the purchase or sale of Bitcoins is not a financial service either, so the Financial Supervision Act does not apply." Then the article goes on to say: >i…
Also, the first country that will allow Bitcoin flourish will attract such an enormous amount of capital, it will make news everywhere and it won't be that easy to shut down business anymore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Your cash can be devalued by printing more cash: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing 2. If you move or store cash, it can be confiscated by the police: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/nation/july-dec13/assets_08-1... Bitcoin is impossible to "print" more than scheduled and it's much easier to transport and store safely than cash or gold.
1) What about gold then? 2) The Silk Road bitcoins were confiscated by police just fine. In fact Bitcoin is in some ways easier to trace and therefore confiscate. If the cops can trace a transaction to you they just apply some rubber hose cryptography.
It is more easily dividable than gold.