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Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

foreignpolicy.com

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Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#151

Post by dundarious »

throwaway20875 wrote: post #148
dundarious wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re right about all of that, and most people really don’t know the extent of corporate and security state capture in US “free press”… but it’s pretty useless as a defense of BTC policy in El Salvador, or as a critique of this article.

There is no defense of BTC inherent to my point, quite the contrary. BTC is largely irrelevant. What's relevant is that this leader in a South American country has thumbed his nose at the empire and the empire will seek to undermine him through all means at its disposal, media hit pieces included.

How is being a BTC bro thumbing one's nose at empire? The winners from any kind of successful BTC movement will overwhelmingly be just a slightly different set of private, unaccountable, economically (and hence politically) powerful people, who are even more ideologically predisposed to libertarian fairy tales.

BTC success in El Salvador would be a defeat for the vast majority of the populace, and a non-event for empire, except maybe to be used as a model to repeat elsewhere.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#152

Post by UncleMeat »

mmargerum wrote: post #78
eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

There's a lot of hype but there's also a lot of potential to revolutionize commerce. imagine if you could pay 10 cents to read an article or tip a web site. How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

> How badly does this torpedo googles ad biz?

Google itself offered this very product. A system for micropayments that would eliminate all of the ads. Nobody used it.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#153

Post by lowkey »

chaostheory wrote: post #147
lowkey wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by a…

You’d have a better point if transactions were fast AND cheap. Until crypto gets there, it won’t be viable as an actual currency yet. I’m not saying it’s impossible like this hit piece, but it’s not there yet.

1) Bitcoin isn't about fast and cheap transactions. It is about censorship-resistant transactions and sound money with a fully fixed and transparent monetary policy, protected by the most powerful supercomputer in the history of the world. No other crpyto currency or asset class offers this.

2) Lightning already offers fast AND cheap payments at nation-state scale. The future is already here, it just isn't evenly distributed yet.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#155

Post by UncleMeat »

lowkey wrote: post #107
eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by a…

Inflation is not caused directly and only by printing.

But imagine it was. We'd see inflation apply evenly everywhere. So wages would rise too. Inflation would not eat into your earnings in any compounding fashion.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#156

Post by jononomo »

A few million men and a few dozen women really really REALLY think bitcoin is Jesus Christ. I think it will be another twenty years before this whole thing blows over just because these dudes are so pot-committed and need religion, basically.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#157

Post by smt88 »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #70
smt88 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No crypto asset is currency or will be currency. They're tradable assets, not unlike Beanie Babies. And I don't see fiat that way because: 1. I use if every day. It's widely usable as currency, it's inflationary, and its value doesn't fluctuate wildly. 2. Fiat only ever promised to fix the problems with gold, and it did that (in the US and Europe at least). It didn't ride a wave of hype that it couldn't live up to. 3…

There’s plenty of fiat criticism outside of crypto, maybe you are in a bubble of neoliberalism

I don't know what you're arguing against in my comment, but it's not something I actually said.

Fiat, The Fed, and active monetary policy are certainly criticized from all angles. I never said otherwise.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#158

Post by smt88 »

mmargerum wrote: post #71
smt88 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your uncle is gambling, just like every day-trader on the traditional stock market before crypto was ever invented.

At this point the equities market is also gambling based on what the fed decides to do next.

I agree.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#159

Post by motohagiography »

acdha wrote: post #146
motohagiography wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't afford not to. The only way we reduce our impact on the planet is by managing its resources effectively, and genuine incentives that drive that efficiency are the only way to achieve that. Poverty is what you get when you don't value what you have, and it's practically the definition of inefficient use of resources. Making geothermal plants economical by leveraging demand from crypto mining that scales dire…

That doesn’t make any sense — a carbon tax has the positive feedback cycle you’re describing. Cryptocurrency doesn’t have that effect because it doesn’t care about the source of the power it’s wasting — as we’ve seen with coal plants coming online — and the waste has no connection to benefits so the demand is insatiable, and miners will use whatever source is cheapest after exhausting surplus renewables no matter its…

I will restate that the incentives of making a geothermal cryptocurrency may be the highest positive impact we can have on the planet in our lifetimes.

How do you exhaust a renewable? By driving up its price, which creates higher rewards on innovation that brings it down. So you don't exhaust it. Carbon taxes were a farce invented and promoted by academic managerialists with no understanding of human desire, as a way to sell their managerialism, and by politicians too meek to stand on their own and so they deferred to con artist experts.

The only reason miners are using coal and nuclear is because it is available, subsidized, and it scales. It's a legacy tech of the past. Geothermal technology isn't available as widely yet, and it requires demand to scale. Miners are that demand.

I wonder what The Boring Company is doing these days, as I think I might have a project.

Re: Bitcoin Failed in El Salvador. The President Says the Answer Is More Bitcoin

#160

Post by jononomo »

lowkey wrote: post #107
eqmvii wrote: post #26

I’m exhausted by cryptocurrency. There’s a kernel of neat tech innovation and a reasonable argument about monetary policy obliterated by an avalanche of greed, hype, fraud, and magical thinking.

I’m exhausted by the fiat money scam 2% annual inflation over a 40 year career amounts to 40% less earnings. Inflation is theft. Bitcoin fixes this. No one has ever explained a better solution to inflation than Bitcoin. Fiat money printing is a scam that lets politicians spend more money without directly raising taxes. Bitcoin is honest sound money with a fixed inflation policy forever that cannot be manipulated by a…

If you make 2% more money every year than you did the year before, then how does that lead to 40% less earnings over 40 years?
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