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Bitcoin is fiat money, too

economist.com

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Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#311

Post by AFNobody »

baddox wrote: post #157
AFNobody wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 51% plutocracy is still a form of state governance that qualifies as fiat money and effectively can destroy the value of your coins if you resist. It is really no different than the government fining you for disobedience. There are philosophical theoretical arguments against this, not pragmatic ones.

According to this definition, is there any possible form of widely-used money that isn’t fiat money?

> According to this definition, is there any possible form of widely-used money that isn’t fiat money?

There used to be 100+ years ago such as gold and silver coins where if you were able to remove them from Country A to Country B, then Country A could no longer enforce such financial penalties against you. This is what many of the cryptocoins _wanted_ to be.

It needs to be a hard currency that leaves you immune to monetary policy and fines unless you are physically within the jurisdiction of the country.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#312

Post by okaram »

musage wrote: post #253
AlexCoventry wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think you have a say in monetary policy, I suggest you read Barofsky's Bailout .

You have a say in it in principle. In contrast, you have in principle no say what others do with their private property. That's the difference, and it's an important one.

Although I still see it as a difference, I think it's good to remember you DO have a say in 'private property' .... there's nothing magical or natural about private property. Private property is whatever society/the government says it is.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#313

Post by rayuela »

skywhopper wrote: post #304
dnautics wrote: post #18

Interestingly the economist misses the traditional definition of Fiat: a currency whose value is determined by the Fiat of a state. Whether or not Bitcoin exhibits similar trends as currency that isn't backed by the state is immaterial to the ethical appeal (to some) of a medium of exchange where participation is voluntary and consensual.

A state doesn't really have control over the value of its currency. It may control how much of it exists in circulation. Likewise, the Bitcoin software tightly controls how much Bitcoin is in circulation. Both limits are done by fiat. Whether the institution doing the fiat is what you personally would recognize as a "state" seems to be a pretty arbitrary distinction. "States" are not the end-all be-all of institution…

"A state doesn't really have control over the value of its currency."

That's a wildly inaccurate statement. A fixed exchange rate, such as that imposed on the Chinese Yuan is a complete refutation of your claim.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#314

Post by sethev »

wuliwong wrote: post #309
labster wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're telling me that government money, where everyone gets a say in policy through republican institutions, is worse than a system where the most wealthy users get more control of the currency. Um, okay. I guess the oligarchy is more explicit in the cryptocurrency.

In the specific case of the united states, the money is controlled by the Federal Reserve which is a private bank.

Most private banks aren't established by an act of Congress and run by people appointed by the President and approved by the Senate.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#315

Post by lottin »

skywhopper wrote: post #304
dnautics wrote: post #18

Interestingly the economist misses the traditional definition of Fiat: a currency whose value is determined by the Fiat of a state. Whether or not Bitcoin exhibits similar trends as currency that isn't backed by the state is immaterial to the ethical appeal (to some) of a medium of exchange where participation is voluntary and consensual.

A state doesn't really have control over the value of its currency. It may control how much of it exists in circulation. Likewise, the Bitcoin software tightly controls how much Bitcoin is in circulation. Both limits are done by fiat. Whether the institution doing the fiat is what you personally would recognize as a "state" seems to be a pretty arbitrary distinction. "States" are not the end-all be-all of institution…

A state controls the money supply by granting itself a monopoly on money production (i.e. it outlaws the production of "counterfeit" money). Bitcoin uses a different strategy — while anyone is allowed to make bitcoins, the increasing production costs ensure there will only be a limited supply. At leasts that's my understanding of how bitcoin works. At any rate, none of this has anything to do with being fiat money. Fiat money means that the money is backed by "trust", i.e. people accept it as currency because they trust that others will also accept it.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#316

Post by ben_w »

narrator wrote: post #295
ben_w wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Step 1: purchase, borrow, or steal enough hash power to reach 51% for a short while Step 2: use this power to force enough transactions to make yourself rich enough to keep 51% power indefinitely Step 3: profit

51% hash power lets you doublespend coins. It does not let you steal from wallets or change the block reward rules.

Which is sufficient to allow you to do what I suggested. Spend coin once on paying for everything, and again on yourself to keep all the money to spend again later.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#317

Post by UncleMeat »

AlphaWeaver wrote: post #70
amb23 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Code is governance" -- the article does support the idea of cryptocurrency as fiat money because the laws, in this case, are the code. The developers and miners, no matter their good intentions, do hold power over the currency that everyday investors do not have. No matter how egalitarian the distributed ledger set up looks on paper, we'd be remiss to think the power structures behind cryptocurrencies are so radical…

Ethereum's upcoming Proof of Stake mechanism is supposed to put more power into the hands of investors compared to miners.

That doesn't really help. Early adopters get huge sums of ETH compared to those who join after the price rises. The distribution of coins is massively unequal.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#318

Post by 55555 »

foepys wrote: post #185
KGIII wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Visas are usually easy to get and there are counties other than the US and aren't Lebanon. Also, Lebanon isn't really all that terrible and you don't need to live there. You can be a citizen of Zimbabwe, if you want. The point is to not have the US government forcing disclosure, per the OP's question.

Roger Ver, who ironically for this thread is a crypto currency investor, renounced his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes and was repeatedly denied entry into the US afterwards. He will most likely never be able to visit his family in the US again.

This doesn't appear to be true.

> In 2015, he was denied a visa to reenter the United States by the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, which claimed that he had not sufficiently proven ties outside of the United States that would motivate him to leave at the end of his visit, causing fears he might become an illegal immigrant.[8][7][9] Later in the same year his visa was approved by the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, and he visited the United States in June 2016 to speak at a conference in Denver, Colorado.[10][6]

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#319

Post by selectodude »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #137
lojack wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, some people treat it as an investment that can be hoarded, but that doesn't change the fact that it can be exchanged. Your narrow definition of medium of exchange sort of excludes any deflationary currency that someone may hold on to as an investment. It could even be expanded to include inflationary currency in a country where hyperinflation is occurring. People will hold on to USD or some other currency as an…

It could even be expanded to include inflationary currency in a country where hyperinflation is occurring. People will hold on to USD or some other currency as an investment because it'll be worth significantly more tomorrow than whatever currency the supermarket down the street accepts. This doesn't really feel the same. You might use USD to store value because you know that it's value isn't going to fluctuate like…

Except on drugs which is essentially the entire monetary velocity of bitcoin.

Re: Bitcoin is fiat money, too

#320

Post by AgentME »

AFNobody wrote: post #310
AgentME wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 51% attack means a lot of bad things can happen to bitcoin. Its value would probably crash if an individual got 51% of the power just because it is no longer truly decentralized, even if they don't abuse that power. Bitcoin was made with the idea that a 51% attack would be unlikely and unfeasible; as long as that holds, I'm not sure what value your comparison has. You might as well make a comparison to any other po…

> A 51% attack means a lot of bad things can happen to bitcoin. Its value would probably crash if an individual got 51% of the power just because it is no longer truly decentralized, even if they don't abuse that power. That already has happened which is why people forked. You can live in denial of that fact if you wish but a minority "lost" the "vote" and forked Bitcoin. http://fortune.com/2017/08/07/bitcoin-cash-bc…

What does bitcoin cash have to do with a 51% attack? Forks are a different type of thing than 51% attacks.
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