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Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

blog.millionintegrals.com

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Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#3

Post by kolinko »

tl;dr; gold standard was abandoned a long time ago, we survived, and therefore it was a good choice to do so.

Or, in the words of the author: "no plans for its return have emerged across a large number of economical cycles"

First of all - it's a weasel-talk. What is that large number of cycles he's talking about? Why is this number sufficient enough to come to the conclusion? Also, the plans to get back to the gold standard come up all the time, they are just unsuccessful.

(even if I agree with the claim of the article, the argumentation is lousy)

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#4

Post by dcc1 »

Ah jebus another blogger who misunderstands bitcoin ecosystem, technology and its users. Who is looking for attention for his blog since its good linkbait. Well he/she got it.

Economists (including the armchair variety like this blogger) should be delighted bitcoin exists, it gives them something to compare and measure and write about for their dismal "science"

In meantime some of us continue to build for bitcoin and have profited nicely out of it (not the rise in price but saving on fees and no chargebacks)

If I hoarded all those coins over last few years instead of using bitcoin as a means of exchange, i be a bitcoin millionaire now (personally i am happy bitcoin is where it is now and where its headed), if everyone did that bitcoin be useless, the fact that its not useless now shows that whole "deflationary" argument is flawed here in the real world.

p.s: There is no lack of alternate cryptocurrencies, if you want inflation, go make your own "inflate-a-coin"TM

p.s #2: I bet in next decade we would have some central bank(s) creating their own cryptocurrencies, for example the Fed could create a "Bit-dolla" and set an inflation rate of 2% and they could control all the mining, if they get IRS to agree to accept it for taxation purpose we overnight have a state sanctioned crypt-ocurrency. Actually whats scary about this scenario is the state knowing everything you buy/sell (if your wallet is tied to SSN for example). I could definitely see governments embracing bitcoinlike techonlogies in order to get more power and control.

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#5

Post by davorb »

> In mathematics, when you write a paper, you are always standing firmly on the shoulders of generations of common knowledge that you don't need to prove yourself - you can safely assume your readers agree with you on the matter. In the same way, I will assume that we agree on the following statement: Implementing gold standard in the modern economy will have no beneficial effect for the mankind, but may have very dire consequences.

You might as well postulate the existence of God.

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#6

Post by dcc1 »

kolinko wrote: post #3

tl;dr; gold standard was abandoned a long time ago, we survived, and therefore it was a good choice to do so. Or, in the words of the author: "no plans for its return have emerged across a large number of economical cycles" First of all - it's a weasel-talk. What is that large number of cycles he's talking about? Why is this number sufficient enough to come to the conclusion? Also, the plans to get back to the gold s…

I like how he ignores recent past of almost the whole global economy imploding due to debt based fiat system, and only being "resolved" by issuing even more debt and printing more dollars

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#7

Post by josephagoss »

The "About me" part really distracted and made the article sour for me.

We always tell others not to attack someone's character but rather focus on their argument, in a way this is the reverse.

It's like you're setting up your credibility to make your argument stronger. I suggest remove that part completely.

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#8

Post by cstrat »

I had the same thoughts about this in my head, but wasn't able to express them as well as this guy. The more you think about it all, the more of a false economy it is - the only people keeping the hype going are the ones who have a vested interest in doing so.

I did buy some BTC about 18 months ago, unfortunately I didn't hang on to them until now - but I didn't expect things to go this far.

Re: Gold standard was bad, but Bitcoin standard is even worse

#9

Post by cstrat »

dcc1 wrote: post #4

Ah jebus another blogger who misunderstands bitcoin ecosystem, technology and its users. Who is looking for attention for his blog since its good linkbait. Well he/she got it. Economists (including the armchair variety like this blogger) should be delighted bitcoin exists, it gives them something to compare and measure and write about for their dismal "science" In meantime some of us continue to build for bitcoin and…

it already exists: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflate-a-coin
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